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THE CITIZEN'S LIBRARY 



The Labor Movement 
in America 



BY 



RICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D., LL.D. 

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY AND DIRECTOR OF THE SCHOOL 

OF ECONOMICS, POLITICAL SCIENCE, AND HISTORY 

IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1905 

All rights reserved 



PREFATORY NOTE FOR THE MACMILLAN 
COMPANY'S REPRINT OF "THE LABOR 
MOVEMENT IN AMERICA." 

The present work was published in 1886, and, although 
since the appearance of the first edition some new matter 
has been added in the form of an appendix, the body of the 
book has never undergone revision. Nevertheless there has 
been a continuous demand for it. While the author is prob- 
ably more painfully aware of its defects than anyone else 
can be, the book has its friends who are good enough to say 
pleasant things about it and to express the opinion that it 
should be brought down to date by a thorough revision. 
This revision must necessarily take some time on account 
of the largeness of the field to be covered. In the mean- 
time the Macmillan Company have undertaken to supply 
the demand for the book by the present reprint. 



RICHARD T. ELY. 



Madison, Wisconsin, 
April 15, 1905. 



PREFACE, 

WITH FINAL WORD TO WORKINGMEN. 

THE importance of those phases of American life with which 
the present work deals, is no longer likely to be called 
in question. The labor movement treats of the struggle of the 
masses for existence, and this phrase is acquiring new meaning 
in our own times. A marvellous war is now being waged in the 
heart of modern civilization. Millions are engaged in it. The 
welfare of humanity depends on its issue. 

I do not claim to have written a history of the labor move- 
ment in America. I offer this book merely as a sketch, which 
will, I trust, some day be followed by a work worthy of the title, 
" History of Labor in the New World." In the meantime, I 
shall be abundantly satisfied if this more modest effort accom- 
plishes two chief purposes which I have set before me as a goal. 
The one is to show that the material furnished to the historian 
by the movements of the laboring classes in America is interest- 
ing, instructive, and withal not devoid of the pathetic and pic- 
turesque. The other is to convince my readers of the vastness 
of our present opportunities. While America is young and our 
institutions and even our habits of thought are as yet plastic to 
an unusual degree, we have advantages which are not likely to 
recur in a near future. It is still in our power permanently 
to avoid many of the evils under which older countries suffer, 
if we will but take to heart the lessons of past experience, and 
seriously endeavor to profit by the mistakes of others ; and 
surely this is wiser than to repeat their folly. The present 
crisis in our history is a time when either optimism or pessi- 
mism is easy; but both are dangerous. The potentialities for 
good or for evil are grand beyond precedent, and it rests with 



vi PREFACE. 

the living to say what the future shall be. There is enough that 
is alarming to excite us to vigorous action ; there is enough that 
is promising to encourage our best efforts with the brightest 
hopes. 

I have endeavored in this book to present an accurate record 
of facts, to ascertain which I have spared no trouble. Books, 
pamphlets, and newspapers have been carefully collected for 
years, and several thousand miles have been travelled with this 
in view. Nevertheless, in a field so new and so immense, it is 
but natural to suppose that I must occasionally have fallen into 
errors both of omission and commission, and I shall regard it as 
a favor if any friendly reader will point these out to me. I shall 
also be under obligations to any one who — for possible use in a 
future edition — will send me any labor literature, such as con- 
stitutions, by-laws, and annual proceedings of labor organiza- 
tions, newspapers, pamphlets, etc. The first phases of the 
labor movement in this country are obscure, and I should be 
particularly obliged for any of the earlier publications relating 
to it, as well as for any oral or written communications bear- 
ing thereon. 

The aim of the present work is chiefly presentation rather than 
refutation, although it will be noticed that I do not entirely ab- 
stain from criticism. I do, however, presuppose that my reader 
is gifted with ordinary common sense, and will not be pleased 
by childish criticism such as must occur to every schoolboy. 
Criticism of this kind, thrust into the midst of the presentation 
of some theoretical system or historical narrative, has often an- 
noyed me in works on social topics, and I have purposely 
avoided it. I further assume that the readers of the following 
pages are of moral natures sufficiently elevated to understand 
that we ought not to lie, murder, and blow up cities with dyna- 
mite, to accomplish our ends. I do not think it necessary to 
tell them this. I do not think it incumbent upon me to say on 
every page, that I am so far from sympathizing with schemes for 
destruction, that I regard them as damnable. 

While I have endeavored first to understand the American 
labor movement, and then to present a description of it in such 



PREFACE. Vii 

manner that others may likewise understand it, letting the parties 
concerned speak for themselves as far as possible, it must be re- 
membered that I have concerned myself chiefly with the main 
current of a great stream, and have not been able to find room 
for a treatment of many separate lesser currents of social life ; 
consequently when I express approval of the labor movement, I 
do not approve everything connected with it. 

Much that is done in the name of labor, I regard with abhor- 
rence. In the same way should the reader understand my ad- 
miration for the Knights of Labor. I believe it is a grand so- 
ciety, but I dissent from some of its principles, and from its 
course in some localities. Individual knights and individual as- 
semblies, have been guilty of outrageous conduct with reference 
to their employers, the general public, and their fellow-working- 
men. Their deeds have sadly injured the cause of labor. Fi- 
nally, while I believe that the Knights of Labor represent an 
organization of a higher type than the trades-union, I do not 
believe that the latter can yet be dispensed with. The two 
forms of organization should co-operate ; but co-operation ought 
to be sought by lawful and kindly measures, and not by such 
abominable methods as I fear have been adopted in a few 
cases. 

" I presume you have felt, as have I, the sting of criticism and 
censure — of misrepresentation because discussing this topic of 
socialism at all." These are words written to me in a letter re- 
cently received, by a friend who is professor of political economy 
in a Western university. They indicate at once a difficulty in the 
way of the economist. The topics he discusses are so vital, that 
any presentation of them is bound to be misconstrued in some 
quarter. Nevertheless, there seems to be only one course for an 
honest man, which is to say his word and patiently endure mis- 
understanding and even malicious abuse. Yet the wilful false- 
hood with which one's character and motives are assailed, when 
one attempts to treat social topics truthfully, are sometimes hard 
to bear, and at times one feels inclined to reply to some malig- 
nant critic, as Charles Kingsley did once when his honest soul 
was vexed beyond measure : — 



yiii PREFACE. 

" If you say theie things, — mentiris intpudentissime" On this 
other hand, frank and honest discussion of differences of opinion 
can only benefit all parties concerned. 

I regard this as a most conservative work, for I believe that 
error in our social life derives its chief strength from its ad- 
mixture with truth, and that the larger the proportion of truth, 
the greater the danger of the error. The thought which has ani- 
mated me, has been to separate the two, and to encourage people 
to render error comparatively harmless by a full and complete 
recognition of truth. ^ 

My thanks are due to many people for kind assistance in the 
preparation of this work. Professor A. S. Bolles, Mr. Joseph 
Labadie, and Mr. E. S. Mcintosh kindly lent me valuable pam- 
phlets. Officers of nearly all of the organizations of which I treat 
in this book have been most courteous in their endeavors to aid me 
in the presentation of an accurate and impartial account of their 
respective societies. My thanks are also due many business men, 
including some of the leading manufacturers of the United States, 
for information readily imparted, and for their generous encour- 
agement, which has been a valuable stimulus to me in my task. 
One of the pleasantest features connected with the preparation of 
this work is the personal kindness received from so many men of 
all occupations, and of the most widely separated social positions, 
in various parts of the country ; and without any mention of names, 
for which space is too limited, I beg them each and all to receive 
this expression of my gratitude. 

Several chapters of this work first appeared in a series of arti- 
cles in the Christian Union two years ago. These articles have 
been used freely both by pulpit and press, sometimes with gener- 
ous recognition of the source of information, perhaps oftener 
without mention either of their author or the Christian Union. 
A year later they were revised, enlarged, and published, under 
the title, " Recent American Socialism," in the Johns Hopkins 
University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Chapter I., 
M Survey of the Field," and Chapter VII., "Co-operation in 
America," appeared first in the Congregationalist, of Boston. A 
few paragraphs appeared first in the Andover Review, and one 



PREFACE. fx 

or two sentences are quoted — with acknowledgment— from an 
article of mine which recently appeared in the North American 
'eview. 



. 



TO WORKINGMEN. 



I wish the last word that I pen in the preparation of this book 
to be addressed to you, for it has been prepared in the hope that 
it may benefit you. I bring together in this place, even at the 
risk of repetition, a few words of caution and counsel ; and I beg 
you to receive these as the sincere conviction of one who would 
be your friend. If I assume the imperative form of address, 
please understand that I do this simply for the sake of brevity, 
and not in any spirit of dictation. I do not wish you to accept 
what I say, unless it commends itself to your judgment and con- 
science. " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." 

i. Let every workingman try to make himself more indispen- 
sable in his place, a better workman and a better man. If every 
member of society is ever to receive a sufficient quantity of eco- 
nomic goods to satisfy all rational wants, products must be in- 
creased in quantity and improved in quality. If we ever expect 
to use our opportunities to the best advantage, we must improve 
our characters. Banding together will be of little avail to worth- 
less men or a worthless cause. 

2. There is no atom of help to you or to any in drink, — the 
poor man's curse so often, and so often the rich man's shame. 
Every effort making to promote temperance among you should 
receive the warmest encouragement. 

3. Beware of demagoguery, especially political partyism, which 
will give illusory triumphs, but leave to you only wretched failure. 
Be not stepping-stones for others to vault into place. Cast of! 
the slavery of party politics, and with faith in the triumph of 
righteousness, ally yourselves to every endeavor to elevate and 
purify public life. You have far more than others at stake in 
this. While the majority of you reject socialism, I am certain 
that most of you agree with me that along certain lines the func- 
tions of the State should be increased. Government cannot do 



x PREFACE. 

everything, but it can do much. Yet when this is suggested, 
corruption in the sphere of public life is urged as an obstruction 
to the performance by the constituted authorities of the land of 
their legitimate duties. Help all those who are trying to remedy 
this unfortunate state of affairs. 

4. It cuts me to the heart when laboring men are shot down 
in the street. All the wars have been at the expense of your 
blood. Imitate no violence. Destruction of the property or 
lives of others cannot help you or enrich you. Your triumph can 
come only by peace. 

5. There is much that is bad in existing social arrangements, 
but there is also much that is good ; and this good has been 
procured by the struggles of centuries. With a full appreciation 
of all that is sad and disheartening in the condition of the masses, 
I believe that, on the whole, the lot of mankind was never a 
happier one than to-day. The preparation of this book has given 
me a stronger conviction than ever before that the past century 
has witnessed an improvement in the position of the laboring 
classes in the United States. Rights which the humblest of us 
Americans take as so much a matter of course that we do not 
reflect upon the possession of them as a source of pleasure, 
although to be deprived of them would inflict the keenest pain, 
were in a past age scarcely within the dreamland region of the 
masses. This is not said to suggest to you that you fold your 
hands, and lazily take things as they are, but to encourage the 
use of conservative means for the attainment of your ends. There 
are vast treasures in our civilization which it is in the interest of 
all to preserve. Resist wrong more strenuously than heretofore ; 
strive for all that is good more earnestly than you have ever 
done ; but let all your endeavors be within the law. The rich 
and powerful will always find protection ; and if the dream of the 
Anarchists were realized, there would be no check to the despot- 
ism of the strong and cunning. The law is often not what it 
should be ; but the law itself points out peaceful methods by 
which it may be changed. Law is often perverted, and fails to 
fulfil its function; but even when it is worst administered, k 
affords some protection. 



PREFACE, ri 

6. Cast aside envy, one of your most treacherous foes. Reject 
every thought of levelling down. Cultivate an admiration for all 
genuine superiority. While all the monstrous inequalities of our 
times can by no means be upheld by good men, while many of 
those inequalities, the fruit of evil, can beget only evil, remember 
that nothing more disastrous to you could happen than to live in 
a society in which all should be equals. It is a grand thing for 
us that there are men with higher natures than ours, and with 
every advantage for the development of their faculties, that they 
may lead in the world's progress, and serve us as examples of 
what we should strive to become. It will not take you long, if 
you think earnestly about it, to become convinced of this. It is 
well for the small farmer to have a rich neighbor to take the lead 
in the use of expensive machinery, the introduction of blooded 
stock, and in other experiments, which, if disastrous, would ruin 
a poor man ; it is well for common schools to be under the influ- 
ence of the best universities, without which their work is likely to 
be indifferent. Why, it is often held to be a misfortune for a 
boy to belong to a class in school or college which he can lead. 
It is, as a rule, much better that there should be those associated 
with him who are abler than he, that they may serve as a constant 
stimulus to him. 

7. If your demands are right, if they are reasonable, then you 
will win and hold your gain. The world will listen even to 
socialism, if properly presented. If you keep to the right, the 
world will come to you. The right is bound to win. Educate, 
organize, wait. 

8. Christ and all Christly people are with you for the right. 
Never let go that confidence. This is a sure guarantee of the 
successful issue of every good cause, the righting of every wrong. 
Christ forever elevated labor and exalted the laborer. He 
worked himself and he sought his associates and the first mem- 
bers of his church among workingmen, men rude and ignorant, 
and certainly no better than the workingmen of to-day. As 
Charles Kingsley has said, " The Bible is the rich man's warning 
and the poor man's comfort. 1 ' 

You cannot proclaim the wrongs under which you suffer with 



Xll 



PREFACE. 



half the force with which they are condemned in the Bible. All 
the social arrangement of the Hebrews were contrived with a 
view to the protection of the weaker industrial elements, and 
where will you find a stronger condemnation of monopoly than 
this: "Wo unto them that join house to house, that lay field to 
field, till there be no place that they may be placed alone in the 
midst of the earth " ? And where will you find a more terrible 
indictment of the rich oppressor than in these verses from the 
Epistle of James? 

" Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries 
that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your 
garments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and 
the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your 
flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the 
last days. Behold, the hire of your laborers who have reaped 
down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and 
the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of 
the Lord of Sabaoth." 

But while the Bible is a good armory from which you may 
draw weapons of attack, it at the same time points out the right 
course for you to take, and furnishes you with that comfort and 
hope which will enable you to continue your efforts for righteous- 
ness, without the dangers of hate and bitterness. It discourages 
no good effort ; but even James follows his awful condemnation 
of the oppressor with these wise words, "Be ye also patient ; 
stablish your hearts ; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." 
No political economist can give you better advice. So when you 
are exhorted to faithful service, you are exhorted to a line of 
conduct quite in keeping with the teachings of science. And the 
peace and contentment which are promised good Christians have 
a high economic value, and in the brotherly love of those who 
have a common Father will you alone find that bond of union 
which can render your joint efforts completely successful. 

11 The church is unfaithful and is now an ally of Mammon." 
These are words frequently spoken by workingmen, and they are 
too true of individual church organizations. But the false coin 
does not detract from the worth of the genuine. Among the 



PREFACE. x iii 

twelve Apostles there was a Judas. Churches often are devoted 
to fashion, and are become " of the world," yet the faith they 
profess and the Bible which they receive is a constant warning 
to them against their departure from the true path. But even 
to-day enumerate the men outside of the laboring class who are 
prominent for their advocacy of the cause of labor. Write all 
the names on a slip of paper and cross out the names of clergy- 
men, and you will find three-fourths of them gone. No other 
large and influential class in the United States is so devoted to 
your welfare, and I know how to give you no better advice than 
to urge you to seek counsel and friendly aid in all your en- 
deavors from Christian ministers and search in the religion of 
the Master whom they worship, for that strength, bravery, conse- 
cration, which will render you invincible in your endeavors to 
serve humanity. 

Richard T. Ely. 

Johns Hopkins University, 

Baltimore, Md., August, 1886. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Survey of the Field I 

CHAPTER II. 
Early American Communism 7 

CHAPTER III. 

The Growth and Present Condition of Labor Organi- 
zations in America 34 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Economic Value of Labor Organizations. • • . . 92 

CHAPTER V. 

The Educational Value of Labor Organizations . . . 120 

CHAPTER VI. 
Other Aspects of Labor Organizations 141 

CHAPTER VII. 
Co-operation in America 167 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Beginnings of Modern Socialism in America . . . 209 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Internationalists 231 



xvi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 
The Propaganda of Deed and the Educational Campaign, 254 

CHAPTER XL 
The Socialistic Labor Party 269 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Strength of Revolutionary Socialism — Its Signifi- 
cance 277 

CHAPTER ^III. 
Remedies 



APPENDIX I. 

I. Platform of Principles of the National Labor Union, 233 
II. Pledge and Preamble of the Journeymen Brick- 
layers' Association of Philadelphia 341 

III. Declaration of Principles and Objects of the Cigar 

Makers' Progressive Union of America .... 342 

IV. Extracts from the Constitution of the National 

Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel 
Workers of the United States 345 

V. Manifesto of the International Working Peoples' 

Association 358 

VI. Letter to Tramps, reprinted from the "Alarm" of 

Chicago 364 

VII. Platform and Present Demands of the Socialistic 

Labor Party 366 

VIII. Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1886, by an' 

American Socialist 370 

APPENDIX II. 

The Relation of Temperance Reform to the Labor Move- 
ment • ♦ . . 375 



THE LABOR MOVEMENT 
IN AMERICA 




THE 

LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. 

CHAPTER I. 

SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 

THE great forces of nature are invisible and work below 
the surface of things, and that which is most real is 
the unseen. He who would understand nature must go 
behind the veil of illusions, under which she conceals 
herself from the unwelcome gaze of the careless and 
indifferent. 

The student of social science finds himself at the outset 
in a similar position. He also speedily discovers "that 
things which are seen were not made of things which do 
appear,' ' and no better illustration of this can be afforded 
than that offered us by the history of the labor movement in 
America. Investigation soon reveals in this movement one 
of the chief social forces working among us, yet it is quite 
unknown in its operations to the ordinary man or woman 
outside of the laboring classes, while the vast majority of 
those who in their own persons bear forward the movement 
have but a glimmering apprehension of its true import. 

We read of the marvels of past eras, but the number is 
small indeed who realize that no previous age was more 
eventful in the life of economic and industrial society than 
that in which we are now living. To-day we are the specta- 




2 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

tors of a most marvellous act in the great world-drama. Yet 
it is necessary to add at once that we are in the position of 
those who seeing see not, or see but dimly. On the one 
hand, attention has not been sufficiently directed to the 
phenomena of the unparalleled social movement in which we 
live ; on the other, it is difficult for us who are in it and of 
it to secure a vantage-ground from which to get large views. 
In his life of Cobden, Morley says : " Great economic and 
social forces flow with a tidal sweep over communities that 
are only half conscious of that which is befalling them." 
Such is the epoch in which we find ourselves. 

Great as are the difficulties in the way, it is nevertheless 
possible to ascertain something of the social movement 
of which we form a part. Last summer I spent some time 
with the Shakers, and when with them, separated as I was 
from the ordinary life of mankind and talking with my good 
friends about the world movements of this century, the feel- 
ing grew upon me that I was in a social observatory, viewing 
as from another planet the buying and selling, the hurrying 
to and fro, the marrying and the giving in marriage, the toil, 
the pleasure, the vanity, the oppression, the good and the 
evil among men on earth ; and I noticed afterward in a letter 
from one of the Shakers the expression, " Our social watch' 
tower." But even without such a social observatory, one 
may step aside and note what the other actors are doing on 
the great stage of social life ; and records — obscure and 
imperfect, to be sure, still valuable records — of the past have 
been preserved. It is not then a fruitless task to endeavor 
to mark off the distance travelled, to ascertain the direction 
of present motion, and to get an approximate idea of the 
speed with which we are moving. 

What is the labor movement ? This question brings us to 
the heart of things. We do not concern ourselves now with 






SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 



accessories, important as they may be ; but we desire to 
know the ultimate significance of the mighty social forces 
which are beginning to shake the earth. jThe labor move- 
ment, then, in its broadest terms, is the effort of men to live 
the life of men. It is the systematic, organized struggle of 
the masses to attain primarily more leisure and larger econo- 
mic resources ; but that is not by any means all, because the 
end and purpose of it all is a richer existence for the toilers, 
and that with respect to mind, soul, and body. Half con- 
scious though it may be, the labor movement is a force 
pushing on towards the attainment of the purpose of hu- 
manity ; in other words, the end of the true growth of man- 
kind ; namely, the full and harmonious development in each 
individual of all human faculties — the faculties of working, 
perceiving, knowing, loving — the development, in short, of 
whatever capabilities of good there may be in us. And this 
development of human powers in the individual is not to be 
entirely for self, but it is to be for the sake of their benefi- 
cent use in the service of one's fellows in a Christian civiliza- 
tion. It is for self and for others ; it is the realization of 
the ethical aim expressed in that command which contains 
the secret of all true progress, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself." It is directed against oppression in every form, 
because oppression carries with it the idea that persons or 
classes live not to fulfil a destiny of their own, but primarily 
and chiefly for the sake of the welfare of other persons or 
classes.^ The true significance of the labor movement, on 
the contrary, lies in this :/it is an attempt to bring to pass 
the idea of human development which has animated sages, ' 
prophets, and poets of all ages \ the idea that a time must 
come when warfare of all kinds shall cease, and when a 
peaceful organization of society shall find a place within its 
framework for the best growth of each personality, and shall 



MOVEMENT. 

abolish all servitude, in which one " but subserves another's 
gain." 

The labor movement represents mankind as it is repre- 
sented by no other manifestation of the life of the nations of 
the earth, because the vast majority of the race are laborers. 

Embracing, then, all modern lands, and in our own country 
extending from the shores of the Atlantic to the waters of 
the Pacific, and from the sources of the Mississippi to the 
Gulf of Mexico, it is but natural that it should assume a 
great variety of forms; nor should it excite surprise to 
discover attempts to divert the movement from its true path 
into destructive byways. False guides are ever found com- 
bating the true leaders, and there is backward motion as 
well as advance. But frequent whirlpools and innumerable 
eddies do not prevent the onward flow of the mighty stream ! 

Socialism, communism, co-operation, trades-unions and 
labor societies, mutual benefit organizations of one kind 
and another, also, alas ! anarchy and nihilism, are different 
lines along which are directed the efforts of the masses 
to attain improved conditions and relations in industrial 
society. 

A radical difference separates these schemes into two 
general classes. Some of them accept the fundamental 
positions of our existing order. They ask no thorough- 
going reconstruction of our economic institutions, but con- 
template the continuance of such far-reaching existing facts 
as private property in land with its rent, private property 
in capital with its profits, the system of freedom of contract 
and the division of men into two classes in economic 
society ; namely, employers and employees. Schemes of this 
first order imply, even when they do not explicitly avow, 
that without considerable change in fundamental principles 
it is possible for the laboring masses to abolish the most 



SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 5 

grievous evils under which they suffer, and to effect such 
amelioration in their condition as may be rationally contem- 
plated either in the present or in any near future. This is 
essentially the position of the trades-unions and of the 
ordinary labor organizations ; yet there is a difference. 

I A conservative trades-unionist of the old school would 
very likely affirm that natural laws set fixed bounds to 
improvement which rendered illusory all hopes of anything 
beyond what efforts directed along this line could accom- 
plish. The more modern and more radical trades-unionist, 
like the members of the Cigar Makers' Progressive Union 
of America, of the Journeymen Bakers' National Union, and 
of the International Furniture Workers' Union, holds to old 
methods, it is true, but only for the present, and in the pres- 
ent largely as a means of education, rather than for what 
can be directly attained by them. This idea is forcibly 
expressed in the following quotation from the Declaration 
of Principles of the Federative Union of Metal Workers 
of America : " The entire abolition of the present system of 
society can alone emancipate the workers, being replaced 
by a new system based upon co-operative organization of 
production in a free society. . . . Our organization should 
be a school to educate its members for the new conditions 
of society when the workers will regulate their own affairs." J 

L.The more modern trades-unionist, while working along 
old lines, is then looking forward to something far more 
radical, — something which, as regards ultimate aims, places 
him among those who hold to social schemes of the second 
class. 

The practical plans and speculations of this class are built 
up on the hypothesis that existing social, economic, and 
legal institutions do not admit the possibility of satisfactory 
living, but render the robbery of the many by the few 



© THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

something so inevitable that the few themselves could 
scarcely prevent it, even if they all, without dissenting voice, 
wished to do so. But this is not all, for this is only the 
dark side of the picture. Pessimists as to the present, the 
adherents of these views are optimists as to the future, for it 
is assumed that it is possible for men to introduce new 
foundation principles into society which will remedy this 
unhappy condition of tilings ; which will indeed banish it 
forever from the earth. This is the position of socialism, 
which holds that justice in the^clistribution of the good 
things of life is to be attained in common and systematic 
production in a re-created state, where men shall receive 
the means of enjoyment in proportion to the service they 
have rendered to society. Communism presupposes a like 
transformation, but seeks justice in equality ; while anarch- 
ism would abolish all existing compulsory institutions, and 
would let men freely build such social structures as inclina- 
tion and uncontrolled desire might prompt. 

Co-operation occupies a place midway between these two 
positions taken by the old trades-unions and socialism 
respectively. It begins within the framework of present 
industrial society, but proposes to transform it gradually and 
peacefully, but completely, by abolishing a distinct capitalist 
class of employers, the leading class at present in that 
society, comprising those who are not inappropriately called 
captains of industry. Co-operation does not desire funda- 
mental change of law, for it hopes by means of voluntary 
associations to unite labor and capital in the same hands — 
the hands of the actual workers. Repudiating State help, it 
proudly adopts as its device, self-help. 



CHAPTER II. 

EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 

THE practical character of the American is a matter ol 
common report and a cause of national pride. The 
citizen of the New World is not content with mere specula- 
tion ; his nature craves action, and nowhere else does practice 
follow so closely upon theory. This trait shows itself in social 
movements as well as elsewhere. Young as is America, she 
has already furnished a field for the trial of a large number 
of romantic ideals of a socialistic nature, and promises ere 
long to outstrip all that has been accomplished by all other 
nations in all past time in the way of social experimentation. 
Confining ourselves for the present to attempts to realize 
various forms of socialism and communism, the mind natur- 
ally reverts' to the " oldest American charter," under which 
the first English settlement was made on American soil. One 
condition stipulated by King James was a common storehouse 
into which products were to be poured, and from which they 
were to be distributed according to the needs of the colo- 
nists, and this was the industrial Constitution under which 
i the first inhabitants of Jamestown lived for five years, 1 dur- 
ing which the idlers gave so much trouble that the old 
soldier, Captain John Smith, was forced to declare in vigor- 
ous language, and with threats not to be misunderstood, that 
" he that will not work shall not eat.'Q " Dream no longer," 
continued Smith, " of this vain hope from Powhatan, or that 

1 Cooke's "Virginia," Chap. III. The date of the charter is 1606. 



8 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

I will longer forbear to force you from your idleness 
or punish you if you rail. I protest by that God that 
made me, since necessity hath no power to force you to 
gather for yourselves, you shall not only gather for your- 
selves, but for those that are sick. They shall not starve." 1 

The first Pilgrims who emigrated to New England were 
bound by a somewhat similar arrangement which they had 
entered into with London merchants, but the issue of 
the experiment was not more successful, and it was partially 
abandoned ; not wholly, for a great deal of land was long 
after held in common, and, indeed, to-day, there are small 
parcels of this land still common property. 2 As is well 
known, the Boston common is but a survival of early com- 
munism, as in fact its very name indicates. 

It must be acknowledged that comparatively little impor- 
tance attaches to either of these experiments. \ The James- 
town communism seems never to have been regarded as 
anything more than a temporary makeshift, and the similar 
arrangement in New England was of a like nature. There 
exist to-day in America far larger and more important 
communistic societies living in peace and great comfort, 
even in wealth. As far as the common lands are concerned, 
they are part of a large system of early landholding which 
still survives to greater or less extent both in America and 
Europe. It is further worthy of notice in this connection 
that before the white man invaded America only common 
property in land prevailed. The American Indians held 
their hunting-grounds in common ; at most, there was a tribal 
right of usufruct, founded on possession and maintained 
by arms. Even at the present day it is seriously doubted 

1 Cooke, I.e., p. 54. 

2 H. B. Adams, " Germanic Origin of New England Towns," Studies 
I. No. 2, p. 33 . 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 9 

whether surviving Indians are ripe for the institution of pri- 
vate property in land, as it is understood by us ; and some 
such restriction as that of inalienability is urged in case land 
is given to them in severalty. 

A more serious endeavor to introduce what may be called 
village communison, was made in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century. " Mother " Ann Lee, with a few 
followers, came to this country from England, in 1774, in 
obedience to heavenly visions, in order that they might lead 
a life in accordance with their convictions. They were 
originally Quakers, but were called " Shaking Quakers " on 
account of their movements of the body in their religious 
exercises ; finally they dropped the designation Quaker, as 
the difference between them and the society of Friends 
became more marked, and took the name which had been 
conferred in ridicule. 

The Shakers settled at Watervliet, near Albany, in 1776, 
and taught celibacy and the doctrine of non-resistance. 
Their idea of the sinfulness of war brought them into trouble, 
as our War of the Revolution was then in progress. " Some 
designing men/' says one of their number, "accused them of 
being unfriendly to the patriotic cause, from the fact of their 
bearing a testimony against war in general.' ' They were 
brought before the Commissioners of Albany, and ordered to 
take the oath of allegiance, but this they could not do, for 
swearing was contrary to their faith. Several of them, among 
whom was Ann Lee, were cast into prison. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that the charge was quite 
groundless. Mother Ann had prophesied before her emi- 
gration that the American colonies would become free 
and independent, and to this day the Shakers retain 
a peculiar affection for America, holding that in this republic 
alone can their experiments succeed at present. 



10 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Mother Ann Lee taught the duties of love and universal 
beneficence, as well as the obligation to abstain from oaths, 
war, and marriage, but did not establish the communistic 
order. Her temporal economy was summed up in these 
words : " You must be prudent and saving of every good 
thing that God blesses you with, that you may have to give 
to the needy. You could not make either a kernel of grain 
or a spear of grass grow, if you knew you must die for the 
want of it. 

" The Gospel is the greatest treasure that souls can possess. 
Be faithful; put your hands to wofk and your hearts to 
God. Beware of covetousness, which is as the sin of witch- 
craft. If you have anything to spare, give it to the poor." 1 

Mother Ann, however, foretold that her successor, Joseph 
Meacham, once a Baptist minister, would establish the com- 
munity of goods after her death. She died in 1784, and 
three years later the order of communism was established 
among this people and has been retained ever since. The 
year 1787 is then the time when communism of this kind 
was first established in America, and the first community 
was located at Mt. Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, 
which is still the home of the strongest Shaker settlement. 

The Shakers live in groups or families with common 
production and equal enjoyment of whatever is produced, 
and their order of life might be called group communism as 
well as village communism, to distinguish it from the 
larger national organization of communistic life which is the 
ideal of the more modern communists. This communism 
is a part of their religious life, and flows naturally from it. 
It must be regarded as a kind of Christian communism, and 
is stated by them in these words : — 

iSee "Ann Lee, the Founder of the Shakers," etc., by F. W. 
Evans, p. 146. 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 11 

" The bond of union which unites all Shakers is spiritual 
and religious, hence unselfish. All are equal before God 
and one another ; and, as in the institution of the primitive 
Christian Church, all share one interest in spiritual and 
temporal blessings, according to individual needs ; no rich, 
no poor. The strong bear the infirmities of the weak, and 
all are sustained, promoting each other in Christian fellow- 
ship, as one family of brethren and sisters in Christ. 

These simple people fail to see how those who profess to 
be followers of Christ can tolerate luxury and poverty side 
by side among brothers and sisters, for this does not seem 
to them compatible with Christian love. 

Perhaps their ideas on this point cannot be better pre- 
sented than by a quotation from an article written by one of 
the elders of the society at Watervliet, New York, and pub- 
lished in the "Shaker and Shakeress " in November, 1874. 
The article is entitled " Serious Questions of the Hour," 
and in the form of a catechism gives the views of the 
Shakers on war, property, and marriage. The part about 
property and communism is headed " Selfishness," and 
reads as follows : " Does Christianity admit of private prop- 
erty? It does not; never did. Do Christian churches 
permit distinctions of dress, diet, or other comforts, among 
the members ? Never. Are there any rich or poor Chris- 
tians ? None whatever. Why are there so many rich, and 
particularly why are there so many poor, in the so-called 
Christian churches of to-day? Because such churches are 
not Christian. Can these be brethren and sisters of Christ 
while faring so unequally ? Never. Why are there no rich 
nor poor in Christ's church ? The formerly rich * lay down ' 
their plenty ; the formerly poor do likewise with their pov- 

1 Quoted from " American Communities," by Wm. Alfred Hinds, 
Oneida, N. Y., 1878. 



12 THE LABOR MOVEMENT, 

erty, and hence share equally. Who, then, are the rich and 
poor? The children of ^resurrection, who will give up 
neither their riches nor poverty for the Gospel's sake. Who 
amass fortunes and live in palatial residences? Unfeeling 
men and women, erroneously termed Christians, who are 
careless of how many are made correspondingly poor. 
. . . What wonderful phenomena accompany conver- 
sions to Christianity? Mine becomes Ours! Riches and 
poverty, with their miseries, disappear." 

The number of the Shakers sodn began to increase, and 
large accessions were " gathered in " during revivals in the 
East, West, and South, and before the close of the century 
societies were established in New York, Massachusetts, 
Ohio, Kentucky, and elsewhere. They have now seventeen 
societies and about seventy communities, 1 as a society may 
include several "families," or communities. The largest 
society, at Mt. Lebanon, comprises nearly four hundred 
souls, and it is there that Elder Frederick W. Evans, the 
best known of the Shakers, resides. Their numbers have 
declined in recent years, but they claim, all told, still some 
four thousand members, while their property is of great 
value. They like to say little about property and numbers, 
as they have small respect for the "statistical fiend" so 
common among us, and feel that a numerical table cannot 
properly measure either their success or 'their influence. 
One who has been some time with them, estimates their 
property at twelve millions of dollars at least. 

Economically, the Shakers have been a complete success, 
and it is said that there has never been a failure among 
them. They look forward to the future with hope, believing 
that their history has just begun. Some of them lament 

1 The number exceeded seventy at one time. It is probably con- 
siderably below that now. 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 13 

their large possessions as contrary to their principles ; for 
they believe in land-reform, or the doctrine that man has the 
right of usufruct in land only, the right of possession but 
not the right of property ; in the second place, they abhor 
the whole hireling system which their great property forces 
upon them. But they expect large accessions in the future. 
They hold their gates open to the elect from all parts of 
the world, and they keep their property in trust for future 
Shakers. 

This order of communism is, then, thoroughly alive and is 
seeking converts. It sends out tracts and newspapers and 
scatters abroad its invitations to the sons and daughters 
of men to retire from the world and to lead a higher, 
celibate or virgin life, free from all worldly anxieties. At 
the same time, it must always be borne in mind that the 
Shakers do not expect ever to draw the entire world into their 
communities, nor do they regard the communistic order as 
suitable for the "generative" outside world. It is the life 
for the choice spirits among men, who have outgrown the 
natural tendencies of their animal nature and desire, an 
existence in which angelic possibilities are materialized on 
earth. Communism is the order for those who neither 
marry nor are given in marriage. To such the Shaker 
family is the single centre of all interests and affections, 
while the introduction of the ordinary family would bring 
in, so they think, separate centres of force and action, which 
would destroy the unity of their life. They hold, however, 
that socialism may be adapted to the world at large. 
j The Shakers are the most successful, and it may at the 
same time be said the most promising, example of commu- 
nism in the United States, and as such deserve special con- 
sideration. It is certain that the outside world has much 
to learn from those pure, simple people, whose self-sacrificing 



14 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

life exercises such a charm over the thoughtful who come in 
contact with them. 

One of the first things to attract attention is the peaceful- 
ness of their countenance, which reminds one of Christ's 
words, "Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto you." 
Howells, who has passed some time with them, describes 
them in his "Undiscovered Country," and speaks of their 
"placidity" as well as "their truth, charity, and purity of 
life, and that scarcely less lovable quaintness to which no 
realism could do perfect justice "; and there seems to be no 
reason to doubt the assertion of one of Howell's characters, 
"They're what they seem ; that's their great ambition." * 

The writer observed this same peace at the village of 
Economy, which will be mentioned presently. Why, it may 
be asked, is this peace, which ought to characterize all 
Christians, found among these communists and not gener- 
ally among church-members? It is possible that freedom 
from all worldly care and from the anxieties of riches and 
poverty has something to do with this. It is possible that 
it is because these people have found in Christianity not 
merely a creed but an order of life. They take up their 
cross and endeavor to apply their Christian principles to 
all relations of life. But it is well to say something about 
the other communistic settlements in America before at- 
tempting to characterize the Shakers more accurately, as 
some things are common to them and other communists. 
• Early in this century another body of communists came 
to the United States from Germany to escape religious per- 
secution. They are called Harmonists, and after a period 
of migration, settled at Economy, near Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- 
vania, where they now reside. Their first leader, George 

1 See also his sketch of Shirley in his " Three Villages." Boston 
1884. 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 15 

Rapp, a man of great ability and extraordinary force of 
character, commanded their confidence, and governed the 
community with such prudence and foresight as to lay the 
foundations of their present wealth, which is estimated at 
various sums, ranging from ten to forty millions of dollars. 
The former figure appears to be a rational estimate. They 
have, then, undoubtedly been successful in the accumulation 
of property, but their numbers have declined. \jAt one time 
Economy was inhabited by a thousand Harmonists ; but at 
present their membership does not exceed forty. They re- 
ceived their last accessions seven years ago, and nearly all of 
them are now old men and women. It is evident that the 
I order will soon cease to exist, unless they decide to add to 
their roll of members. Originally they married, but, becom- 
ing convinced many years ago that celibacy was a higher form 
of life, they have since then lived together as brothers and 
sisters. Their communism is a part of their religion, and to 
them, indeed, it appears like an essential part of Christianity. 
The Germans have also established other communities, as 
at Zoar, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and at Amana, in Iowa, 
in both of which marriage is allowed. With the exceptions 
of the Shaker communities these are the two strongest com- 
munistic societies in the United States. 

Zoar was founded in 1817 by Separatists, a religious sect 
of Wurtemberg, who rebelled against the formalities of the 
established religion because they did not seem to them to 
! make people better. They also objected to war, and con- 
1 sequently could not serve in the army. Persecuted on 
! account of their peculiarities, they fled to America, and, with 
the assistance of Quakers of Philadelphia, who were doubt- 
| less drawn to them by similarity of belief, they acquired the 
large tract of land, on which they now live. The commu- 
nistic order was an afterthought, and was established in 



16 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

1 8 19 in order to save the property of all, as the members 
did not seem able to stand alone, many of them not being 
able to pay for their separate holdings. They continued to 
thrive many years under the leadership of Joseph Baumeler, 
who died in 1853, and their prosperity has continued 
unabated since his day, though no one has ever attained the 
same esteem and the same position in leadership. They 
now own several thousand acres of land, besides manufac- 
turing establishments, and all their property is valued at about 
a million and a half of dollars. They number some three 
hundred and ninety souls at present, so that the per capita 
wealth is about $5,000, while in the whole United States it is 
estimated to be under $1,000. They live in families, labor 
diligently, but do not overwork, have one common fund, 
and get whatever they need without money and without 
price. They are religious, but do not appear to be so 
devout as the Harmonists or Shakers, the latter of whom, 
indeed, believe in a life of total exemption from sin. 

The membership of the Amana community, or communi- 
ties, for there are seven of them, is much larger. This 
society embraces about eighteen hundred members, and 
owns upwards of twenty- five thousand acres of land. The 
Amana community originated in Germany sixty-six years 
ago, and established the order of communism near Buffalo in 
1842, whence they emigrated to Iowa in 1855. They 
furnish the most remarkable example of communism in 
conjunction with the institution of marriage and the family 
to be found in this country, but the religious life with them 
is also primary, and money-making only a secondary object. 

The French have established a remarkable community, 
called Icaria, in which they have attempted to realize the 
pure non-religious communism of Cabet, the author of 
the charming communistic romance, "Voyage en Icarie." 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 17 

The Icarians came to America in 1848, and were under the 
personal direction of Cabet for several years, during which 
they achieved a remarkable degree of prosperity. Their 
eventful and picturesque history, perhaps the most interest- 
ing and instructive chapter in the annals of this early Ameri- 
can communism, is narrated in Dr. Shaw's admirable book, 
" Icaria." 1 The work " Icaria," at once pathetic and 
romantic, gives us such an insight into the nature of the 
earlier phases of communism in America, as is afforded by 
no other publication, and to it the reader is referred for 
further information in regard to this subject. 

Not one of these communities was established by Ameri- 
cans. The Shakers are now composed, it is probable, 
chiefly of Americans, but the others are still perhaps foreign 
in character. But native-born citizens have also founded 
communities, and of them the most prosperous was that of 
the Perfectionists, at Oneida, New York, whose builder was 
John Humphrey Noyes, son of a member of Congress. 
The family of Mr. Noyes is one of the best in the country. 
The former minister to France, who bore the same name, 
was a distant relative. His mother was a Miss Hayes, and 
he himself was first cousin to ex-President Hayes. Mr. 
Noyes was a well-educated man, having studied at Dart- 
mouth and Yale Colleges and at Andover Theological 
Seminary. He was a man of fine natural ability, with great 
powers as a leader. This community was remarkable for 
the number of college-bred men it contained. There were 
several graduates from Yale among them, and at least one 
graduate from Columbia College of New York. 

Several peculiarities of the Oneida Perfectionists are cal- 
culated to attract attention. They believed in freedom from 
sin, though in this they did not differ from members of 
1 New York, 1884. 



18 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

other communities, in particular the Shakers. One of their 
most remarkable institutions was called " Mutual Criticism," 
which proved so useful to them that they declared it im- 
possible to establish successful communism without it. With- 
out entering into a lengthy description of its details, it may 
be said that the members met together at regular intervals 
for criticism of members to their face. This was designed 
to take the place of gossip and backbiting in ordinary 
society and to utilize the force which was thus wasted. It 
is said that it was sufficient for disciplinary purposes, that it 
led the members to improve themselves in mind, soul, and 
body, and rendered every member more agreeable to every 
other member. It was even introduced in their school, and 
worked successfully, as I was told, by their schoolmaster. 
If Master Johnny made some cruel remark, the teacher 
would perhaps ask one of his mates what he thought. " I 
don't think it was very kind of Johnny to say that." Then 
as the young man was under criticism, another would be 
asked, "What do you think of Johnny? " when a reply like 
this might be received : " I don't think he is very polite to 
the girls. He teases them too much." And as one after 
another of his little mates expresses an opinion, Master 
Johnny blushes and hangs his head in shame and mortifica- 
tion, but for many days thereafter he is a model boy. The 
powers attributed to mutual criticism were marvellous, and 
included even the ability to heal disease when administered 
to the sick. 

But another peculiarity of the Perfectionists was their free- 
love practices within the community itself. They regarded 
the community as one great family, and attempted to repress 
any exclusive affections within their order. They held that 
a person can love many persons at the same time as well as 
at different times, and regarded exclusiveness in person as 



EARLY AMERICAN CO&MUNISM. 19 

sinful for them as in property. Diligent students of Darwin, 
Huxley, and other scientists, they attempted to apply their 
principles in raising men. 1 All this was so repugnant to the 
moral sense of the people of New York State that it brought 
upon them the constant ill will of the public, and finally 
threats of legislative interference and suppression by law. 
Mr. Noyes found it expedient to fly to Canada, where he 
died, April 13, 1886. These loose practices were abandoned 
in 1879 > at anv rate > m ^ at y ear a ^ those who chose were 
allowed to marry, and in 1881 the society became an ordi- 
nary joint-stock concern, and so terminated this communistic 
experiment ; though many of the old members still remain 
attached to their former principles and believe in their ulti- 
mate triumph. 1 Economically, the Perfectionists also suc- 
ceeded^? At the time the joint-stock corporation was formed 
they were over two hundred strong, and their property was 
valued at $600,000. Their credit has been, and as a corpo- 
ration is still, the best. They pursued a diversified industry, 
and have been successful as agriculturists, manufacturers, and 
packers of fruit, meats, etc. They attribute their financial 
prosperity largely to the fact of the variety of their enter- 
prises, because if one did not prosper, another would. Their 
old establishment — a beautiful place, with handsome grounds 
and fine buildings — is still maintained, as well as a large 
silver-plating establishment and other smaller concerns at 
Niagara. They claim that they were not sensual, but exer- 
cised self-control, and point to their success in business as 
a proof of their assertions. Odious as their practices must 

1 It is impossible to go into this unpleasant subject further in a work 
of this kind. It has been treated from a medical standpoint by Dr. 
Ely Van De Warker under the title of " A Gynecological Study of the 
Oneida Community," in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Dis- 
eases of Women and Children, for August, 1884. 



20 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

appear to one who believes in the divinity of the monogamic 
family, it seems necessary to admit that they lived quietly 
and peacefully, and conscientiously discharged all financial 
engagements, so as to win the good-will of many of their im- 
mediate neighbors. They did not design, any more than do 
the Shakers, to take the w T hole world into their community 
life ; but evidently intended that as a basis for literary and 
other propaganda. Mr. Noyes desired ultimately to estab- 
lish a daily newspaper to convert the world to his views. 

Space is too limited to permit the enumeration of the 
many other communities established in America. The two 
great periods of a revival of interest in communism, and the 
foundation of village communities based on that principle, 
are, 1826, when Robert Owen visited this country and 
received distinguished attention from the American people, 
and 1842-46, when, under the lead of Horace Greeley, 
Albert Brisbane, Charles A. Dana, and others, Fourierism 
extended itself rapidly over the country. Mr. Noyes in his 
work, " History of American Socialisms," mentions eleven 
communities founded during the first period, and thirty-four 
which owed their origin to the second revival of communism. 
It is safe to say that considerably over one hundred, possibly 
two hundred, communistic villages have been founded in the 
United States, although comparatively few yet live. There 
are perhaps from seventy to eighty communities at present 
in the United States, with a membership of from six to seven 
thousand, and property the value of which may be roughly 
estimated at twenty-five or thirty millions of dollars. 

The history of the Fourieristic phalanxes founded in 
America is peculiarly interesting and instructive. They 
represent a compromise between communism and our 
present industrial system, which in the day of Fourierism was 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 21 

peculiarly attractive to the intellect and heart of our Ameri- 
can people, and it may be safely said that no radical social 
movement among us ever received such generous and wide- 
spread support. This is not the place to go into an account 
of Fourier's teachings/ but it may be said that the central 
idea 1 was to effect a satisfactory union between capital, skill, 
and labor by awarding a definite fixed share to each. Albert 
Brisbane, the most ardent disciple of Fourierism in the 
United States, wrote an exposition of the doctrine entitled 
" Social Destiny of Man, or Association and Reorganization 
of Industry." The work was published in Philadelphia in 
1840 and attracted wide attention in its day. The chief 
organ of Fourier's doctrine, although not officially called such, 
was the New York Tribune, then edited by Horace Greeley, 
whose warm heart responded eagerly to any apparently 
rational plan for the amelioration of the lot of man. The 
three most celebrated Fourieristic phalanxes were the 
famous Brook Farm, the North American Phalanx, and the 
Wisconsin Phalanx, called Ceresco. Although these event- 
ually died like all other attempts to realize the Fourieristic 
ideal in the United States, 2 they were not devoid of a certain 
success. Brook Farm lived six years and was a source of 
gratification and perhaps spiritual and moral profit to its 
members. Although in many respects poorly managed, it 
struggled along until a disastrous fire placed too heavy a 
load upon its members, and it wound up its affairs. The 
Harbinger, the official organ of Fourierism, was published 
at Brook Farm. 

The North American Phalanx, in Monmouth County, 

1 A brief resume may be found in Ely's " French and German 
Socialism," Chap. V. 

2 M. Godin's successful experiment at Guise, France, is a modifica 
tion of Fourierism. 



22 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

New Jersey, near Red Bank, was established in 1843, and 
was wrecked by a fire in 1854, although it lingered until 
1856 before it drew its last breath. It furnished a pleasant 
home to many, and descriptions of numerous enjoyable 
occasions at the North American may still be read. Not- 
withstanding its losses, it was able to pay sixty-six cents on 
a dollar when its affairs were closed. 

The Wisconsin Phalanx was founded in 1844, and finally 
became Ripon of the present day. It prospered greatly, and 
finally fell apart of its own weight, because there was no vital 
coherent principle to hold its members together. It paid 
one hundred and eight cents on the dollar in 1850. The 
work began with "unwonted enthusiasm"; the life was 
agreeable ; but the gold fever drew off some of the young 
men in 1848, and in two years it was decided to return to 
ordinary industrial life. 

What appeared to be the strength of Fourierism was, 
doubtless, its weakness. \ It was a compromise ; an attempt, 
as it were, to serve two masters. The Fourierites always kept 
back something, and never gave their entire heart to this 
cause. It was an attempt to modify essentially the principle 
of private property, and to change human feeling with refer- 
ence to it while still retaining it. This could not work well ; 
at any rate, did not work well. In the North American 
Phalanx the members invested savings outside of the com- 
munity because they could obtain larger returns on their 
capital, and the capital of the Phalanx was largely the prop- 
erty of non-residents who became tired of the experiment, 
and preferred to sell the property rather than erect new 
buildings in the place of those destroyed by fire, although 
there is reason to believe that the communists might have 
prospered for some years to come, and perchance might 
indeed have become the one successful phalanx in America. 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 23 

Again, Fourierism retained sweeping inequalities, while it 
condemned the inequalities of the outside world. The only 
successful examples of communism in America have been 
forms of pure communism in which all the interests of the 
members of the body have been permanently united to the 
body. 

C Forty years ago men of high education and large ability 
thought that communistic villages would revolutionize the 
economic life of the world. The process, a speedy but 
peaceful one, was viewed in this way : The community where 
all live together harmoniously as brothers with no meum et 
tuu?n, but with all things in common, affords the only escape 
from the warring, competitive world of the present, where 
some die of excessive indulgence in luxuries, and others of 
starvation, and where the future of no one is secure. When 
a few communities have been established, the happy Chris- 
tian life which men there lead will attract the attention of 
outsiders and win them to join the brotherhood of commun- 
ism. Thus community will follow community with ever- 
accelerating ratio until the entire earth is redeemed. Cabet, 
for example, " allowed fifty years for a peaceful transition from 
our present economic life to communism. In the interval, 
various measures were to be introduced by legislation to pave 
the way to the new system. Among these may be men- 
tioned communistic training for children, a minimum of 
wages, exemption of the poor from all taxes, and progressive 
taxation for the rich. But 'the system of absolute equality, 
of community of goods and of labor, will not be obliged to 
be applied completely, perfectly, universally, and definitely, 
until the expiration of fifty years.' nl 

All these hopes have been generally abandoned as idle 
dreams, and it is due largely to experiments made in 
1 Ely's " French and German Socialism," p. 50. 



24 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

America that the enthusiasts of fifty and sixty years ago 
have been disillusionized. It is not that the communistic 
life itself has in every case proved a disappointment. On 
the contrary, thousands have clung to it with affection 
through trial, adversity, and evil report, and have felt them- 
selves amply repaid for every sacrifice in their new life, while 
others who have abandoned it, have looked back upon their 
experience with fond regret. Thus one member of the 
celebrated Brook Farm community uses these words with 
reference to their feelings in regard to that experiment : 
"The life which we now lead, though to a superficial 
observer surrounded with so many imperfections and em- 
barrassments, is far superior to what we were ever able to 
attain in common society. There is a freedom from the 
frivolities of fashion, from arbitrary restrictions, and from the 
frenzy of competition. . . . There is a greater variety of 
employments, a more constant demand for the exertion of 
all the faculties, and a more exquisite pleasure in effort, 
from the consciousness that we are laboring, not for personal 
ends, but for a holy principle ; and even the external sacri- 
fices which the pioneers in every enterprise are obliged to 
make, are not without a certain romantic charm. ,, 
..; But the communities failed to win adherents, often failed 
to continue their own existence. Unthought-of obstacles 
were encountered in human nature. Idleness was an evil 
occasionally contended with, though this seems rarely to 
have been a cause of any serious trouble. Petty jealousies 
have proved more serious, and personal differences, such as 
are bound to spring up among unregenerate men living in 
any close connection, have been rocks upon which many a 
community has made shipwreck. During a period of 
poverty the struggle for existence has often knit the mem- 
bers of communities firmly together into a compact whole, 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 25 

which has become disorganized by the inability to endure 
the severer trials of a period of prosperity when factions 
arise and party bickerings become intolerable. Then the 
life is too small and commonplace to satisfy the cravings 
of many of larger natures. There is little scope for ambi- 
tion, and ambition is one of the chief traits of mankind. 
Zoar furnishes illustration. The young men of ability often 
long for a wider sphere and leave on that account. One 
of these seceders was recently mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. 

Cleverly contrived and fantastic arrangements like those 
of Fourieristic phalanxes have never been found to exercise 
any magic qualities either on converts or the sinful world. 
Men have not been attracted sufficiently to join the com- 
munities in large numbers, because, either for good or for 
ill, the spirit of the selfish world has been too strong to be 
deeply touched by the spectacle of generous self-renouncing 
communism. The flesh-pots of the Egypt of competition 
have proved stronger than the Canaan of communism, 
though the latter even now often flows with abundance of 
milk and honey. Yet this early American communism has 
rich lessons to teach men if we will but take the trouble 
to gather them, and we have reason to be grateful to two 
classes of men on this account. 

John Stuart Mill, whose writings are a constant rebuke to 
narrow and petty fears entertained by those who dread any 
innovation, urged long ago that the utmost freedom ought 
to be given to those who desire to conduct social experi- 
ments, and that they should indeed be encouraged in every 
way. We have reason to be grateful that America has been 
large enough and brave enough to afford a home to those 
who desired to establish communistic settlements. We 
have reason to be grateful to those men who have encount- 
ered the prejudice of small souls and have shown what their 



26 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

settlements can do and also what they cannot do. It is 
much to be desired that Americans should take this lesson 
to heart ; for there seems to be at present among us an un- 
American fear of new social ideas, whereas, our only danger 
consists in a dearth of them. While ail violence either of 
workingman or capitalist, should be put down with an iron 
hand, we should keep our minds open for new truth and 
afford every opportunity for social experiments. We can 
well begin our consideration of the lessons we have to learn 
from our communistic settlements-% a long quotation from 
an able thinker who saw much of them. Horace Greeley 
commenting on early American communism in his "Auto- 
biography," says : "We stand, then, in the presence of this 
state of facts : On the one hand, it is proved difficult to 
create and maintain a more trustful and harmonious social 
structure out of such materials as the old social machinery 
has formed, — or rather, we may say practically, out of such 
materials as the old machinery has expelled and rejected ; 
yet we know, on the other hand, that a more — yes, I will 
say it — Christian Social Order is not impossible. For it is 
more than half a century since the first associations of the 
gentle ascetics contemptuously termed Shakers, were formed ; 
and no one will pretend that they have failed. No • they 
have steadily and eminently expanded and increased in 
wealth and every element of material prosperity, until they 
are at this day just objects of envy to their neighbors. They 
produce no paupers; they excrete no beggars; they 
have no idlers, rich or poor; no purse-proud nabobs, 
no cringing slaves. So far are they from pecuniary 
failure, that they alone have known no such word as fail, 
since, amid poverty and odium, they laid the foundations 
of their social edifice, and inscribed 'Holiness to the 
Lord ' above their gates. They may not have attempted 






EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 27 



the highest nor the wisest achievement; but what they 
attempted they have accomplished, and, if there were no 
other success akin to theirs, — but there is, — it would 
still be a demonstrated truth that men and women can 
live and labor for general, not selfish, good, — can banish 
pauperism, servitude, and idleness, and secure general thrift 
and plenty, by moderate co-operative labor and a complete 
identity of interests. Of this truth, each year offers added 
demonstrations ; but if they were all to cease to-morrow, the 
fact that it had been proved, would remain. Perhaps no 
Plato, no Scipio, no Columbus, no Milton, now exists ; but 
the capacity of the race is still measured and assured by the 
great men and great deeds that have been. Man can work 
for his brother's good as well as his own; an unbroken, 
triumphant experience of half a century has established the 
fact, so that fifty centuries of contrary experience would not 
disprove it." 

One point which deserves consideration in a treatment 
of American communities is the diversity of employment 
which is allowable in them. This gives opportunity for a 
fuller development of all faculties than falls to the lot of the 
ordinary laborer, and also gives an economic security to 
persons who follow this life, which is something unusual in 
these days. There have been many failures among com- 
munities and perhaps more relatively than in ordinary 
business enterprises, but it is difficult to conceive of any- 
thing which could cause the failure of the Shakers at Mt. 
Lebanon, and very likely the same may be said of Zoar and 
Amana. 

The pleasure of co-operative labor is a noticeable feature 
of community life when seen at its best. It may not be 
greater than that taken by the artist or literary man in his 
work, but it far surpasses the satisfaction with which the 



28 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. , 

ordinary isolated laborer performs his task. It is work of 
brothers and sisters together for common ends, and testi- 
mony in favor of this is very general. A former member of 
the Icarian community uses these words in describing his 
toil while a resident of Icaria : " We all worked together in 
groups as much as practicable, first at one thing, then at 
another, thus with many hands making our work light and 
more profitable and pleasant at the same time. We had 
neither employer or employee, but we were all equal 
partners, and by thus working together with a united 
interest our labor was more like a game of pleasure than 
the tedious and tiresome way of either working alone or 
with superiors or inferiors in the shape of bosses or servants." 
The communists enjoy good health and liv^to great age, 
and I think it is true of them generally that they give 
much attention to the rules of health. This is certainly the 
case with the Shakers, with whom hygiene is a matter of religion. 
"The two bases of morality," says Daniel Fraser, a Shaker 
with whom I have held many delightful conversations, " are 
access to the land and hygiene." The Shakers expect in 
the future to abolish disease and ill-health from among them. 
Even now they live to be very old. There had been three 
deaths at Mt. Lebanon during the year previous to my visit. 
Two of them were brothers aged eighty-seven and ninety- 
one respectively. The third was a sister aged one hundred 
and eight. One of the sisters told me that the brother aged 
eighty-seven could in his last year " run a race with any of 
the boys." She said further : " His vitality was great and 
his mental vigor was remarkable to the last. His intellect 
was wonderful. He could hold his own in debate with any 
man I ever saw." Daniel Fraser is between eighty and 
ninety, and his intellectual powers seem entirely unimpaired, 
while his bodily powers are still good, though he does not 



, EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 29 

work so long and so steadily as the younger members. He 

showed me, however, with justifiable pride, a bed of onions 

which had been his special care. He had gone over the 

rows several times, so that his work was equivalent to hoeing 

one row three miles long once. Elder Frederick Evans 

is seventy-eight, but does not look old. Even animals 

: seem to live long among them. When I went with Elder 

1 Frederick to gather apples, he asked me how old I took the 

. black horse before the wagon to be. "Twelve," I replied. 

"He is thirty," said Elder Frederick; "but that is Shaker 

• treatment, not the world's." Among the Economites one 

may see men and women of seventy and eighty who are still 

j hale and hearty. This is notably the case with their leader, 

Jacob Henrici, who, I believe, is over eighty. 

The moral is obvious. It teaches the importance of 
regular habits, simple, wholesome food, attention to ventila- 
tion and temperature in living rooms, and the benefits of 
continued labor. 

The intelligence of the communists impressed me very 
favorably. I suppose they must be compared with people 
in the ordinary walks of life ; for example, with the average 
farmer's family, and they shine by comparison. Among the 
Economites music is cultivated, and they all read more or 
less. There is also a largeness and breadth of view among 
them which is sometimes surprising. With one of the aged 
Shakers I discussed European and Oriental politics in a 
most interesting manner ; indeed, I do not know that I ever 
listened to a more interesting conversationalist. The dis- 
cussion embraced the Egyptian policy of England and a 
comparison of the moral altitudes of Gladstone, Parnell, and 
Joseph Chamberlain, — much to the favor of the latter, it 
may be added. 

Reference was made to Robert Ingersoll, who, it seems 



30 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

to me, was answered effectively. R£nan was quoted, an<! 
new thoughts were given me about personality in general, 
and the personality of God in particular. The conversa- 
tion was full of quaint, curious, and indeed startling ex- 
pressions. A locomotive was described as " materialized 
invisibility." In speaking of English politics, in which he 
took part in about 1830, he described the manner in which 
concessions were made to the people by politicians, who 
really cared nothing for them, in order to further party 
interests, and then added thoughtfully, " It is rather singular 
that the antagonisms of hell promote progress." 

At another time, the conversation turned to the Interna- 
tionalists, when he spoke about as follows : " The Interna- 
tionalists and those who oppose them, and those who create 
the conditions which make them possible, — they are all of 
them in hell. Hell is harsh unreasonableness, sour unrea- 
sonableness. Reasonableness is justice — the recognition of 
the same right to life and its comforts in others which we 
have." In a letter since received, this good friend writes : 
"I worship God through the manifestations of intelligent 
beneficence and wise adaptations. Were all equally par- 
takers, effusions of gratitude would arise of themselves. 
Friend Hughes 1 is right that the confusions of our time are 
due because society is at strife with the will of God and his 
Christ To destroy Internationalism, first do justice to 
them; then add beneficence, and they will disappear like 
snow before a warm sunshine. In love ..." 

There is a lesson taught by these communists in regard to 
human nature, I think. Indolence gives them little trouble ; 
among the Shakers, I have not heard that it has given any 
whatever. Alcander Longley, a member of various societies 

1 Reference is to Thomas Hughes, author of "Tom Brown at 
Rugby." 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 31 

for the past forty years, says in his Communist} under date of 
July i, 1878 : "The testimony of all communities is that the 
lazy are easily induced to work by a little friendly criticism 
and kind persuasion." It appears that at Oneida it was 
oftener necessary in mutual criticism to blame members for 
overwork than for indolence. In letters on the Shakers to 
the New York Tribune, Mr. E. V. Smalley said : "The lack 
of the stimulus of individual gain seems to be no drawback. 
In its place there is the public spirit of the community, 
which spurs up all laggards, and a strong religious conviction 
of duty that makes all the members work together 
harmoniously. " 

To one who knows this, the air of thrift and the scrupulous 

I cleanliness which characterizes many communities cannot be 

! a matter of surprise. Zoar is, however, said to be an excep- 

( tion. A friend writes that it presents an untidy appearance. 
I am unable to explain what is the cause of this difference. 

Over many other interesting points it is necessary to pass 
with haste ; for early American communism, after all, plays 
a subordinate part in the American labor movement. 

The spiritualism of the Shakers, so well described by 
Howells in the " Undiscovered Country," will attract the 

' careful student, as well as the fact that a strong religious 
element has been present in nearly all those communities 

! which have succeeded. I believe this goes to show the 
necessity of an ethical tie to bind together not merely com- 
munistic communities but any social organization whatever. 

J Without it I believe every society, republican or monarchical, 

\ must ultimately perish. 

1 Published in St. Louis. He has published it as he has had means 
for thirty years and more. Perhaps it is the only existing English 
] organ of the older type of communism. It now bears the name 
Altruist. 



32 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Remarkable is the strength of character which community 
Sfe has developed ; also the force of joint enthusiasm is 
noteworthy. This has been observed frequently at Oneida. 
One winter all were ardently pursuing the study of Greek, 
and nearly all learned the language. Mrs. Noyes, then over 
sixty years of age, became so proficient that she and her hus- 
band afterwards were accustomed to read the Greek and not 
the English New Testament together. During another winter 
the study of mathematics absorbed the energies of all, young 
and old, men and women. It was decided on one occasion 
that the use of tobacco was inexpedient; whereupon all 
addicted to it at once abandoned the habit, and no one ever 
returned to it. At Economy the married resolved to lead a 
celibate life, and have ever since lived together as brothers 
and sisters. These instances perhaps show a power in con- 
centrated public opinion which has never yet been fully 
utilized. 

It is a matter of course that communists are temperate. 
They, like nearly all social reformers, place woman on an 
equal footing with man in every relation of life. 

An exquisite consideration for others is often shown. At 
Mt. Lebanon I was taught how to shut a door so as not to 
give the slightest disturbance to any one. I was told that 
that was a lesson in Shakerism. ."It is Shakerism," said 
Daniel Fraser, "reduced to the point of a pin." 

The Shakers, it may here be added, expect a great future. 
They look forward to six cycles and believe that they have 
just emerged from the first. 1 One of them writes : " We 
have but begun a great work. It works against no reforms, 
but co-operates with and embraces them all." 

1 At any rate, this is the opinion one of them, Elder Frederick, 
expressed. I believe, however, that they allow great latitude of opinion 
on matters which they do not regard as essentials. 



EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 33 

When my friend, Professor Knight, visited Zoar, he 
endeavored to get a brief resume of the benefits of com- 
munism as they presented themselves to a communist .by 
asking one of the trustees to state the superiorities of heir 
Ufe over "the industrial and social system of the outside 
world " and he replied without hesitation about as follows : 
« We all live comfortably, we don't have to worry about 
money matters, we are all on an equality and we are sure 
of being taken care of when we are too old to work. Can 
you say the same for everybody where you live? 

Early American communism is not adapted to modern 

economic life, and as an attempt to establish a world system 

may be regarded as antiquated, though it may not be exact 

to say as I once did, that « it exists only as a curious and 

nt Isi survival." I like to think that it has still a 

mission to perform, though not that which its early advocates 

hoped. In particular is it earnestly to be desired that such 

S possessions as those of the Harmonists may be pre 

served for social experimentation m the future. If wise y 

conducted, their wealth would then forever be a blessing to 

m Eariy d American communism has accomplished much 
good and little harm. Its leaders have been actuated by 
noble motives, have many times been men far above their 
Mows in moral suture, even in intellectual stature and 
hte desired only to benefit their kind. Its aim has been 
to elevate man, and its ways have been ways of peace. 

Quoted by kind permission from Professor Knight's manuscript on 



Zoar. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE GROWTH AND PRESENT CONDITION OF 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 

I. First Period, i 800-1861. 

ORGANIZED labor is labor in its normal condition. 
Unions of laborers may be traced back in European 
history for at least six hundred years ; and it is probable that 
in whatever period and in whatever country we are able to 
find large masses of free laborers thrown together, careful 
research will reveal to us at least the germs of labor organ- 
izations. Association is so natural to man, and its benefits 
so great, that it is ever sought, and, indeed, more and more 
sought with the progress of civilization. Isolation is weak- 
ness, but union is strength. 

Nevertheless, little or nothing was heard of labor organ- 
izations in America one hundred years ago, and even in 
Europe their older forms were passing away, and the more 
modern trades-unions had not been developed. It was a 
transition period between old and new institutions, and was 
a point of rest like that between the outgoing and the 
incoming tide. Doubtless Adam Smith described correctly 
the causes which then led to the appearances of labor in 
public discussion, when he said, "In the public deliberations, 
therefore, his (the laborer's) voice is little heard and less 
regarded, except upon some particular occasions, when his 
clamor is set on and supported by his employers, not for 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 35 

his own, but their own particular purposes." In another 
I place Adam Smith explains the appearance of the workmen 
before the public in the assertion that manufacturers "in- 
fluence their workmen to attack with violence and outrage " 
those who propose the abolition of restrictions on the 
freedom of trade. 

While it is evident that the times have changed radically 
since Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations " appeared in 
1776, his explanation of the appearance of the working 
classes in public discussions and his view of the cause of 
violence on their part, still hold true with regard to a 
minority, though doubtless a very small minority, of the 
occasions when laborers figure in riots and in legislative 
deliberations. Thus in the history of the Camden and 
Amboy Transportation Company we read of a disturbance 
instigated by the officers of that company and directed 
against an obnoxious rival to ruin his business. A riot 
ensued, and one man was killed. Mr. Hudson, in his able 
work "The Railways and the Republic, " tells us that work- 
men of the Standard Oil Company packed a public meeting 
in Pittsburgh and " howled down every speaker advocating 
commercial freedom in the oil trade." A suit is now 
pending against the Western Union Telegraph Company on 
account of violence perpetrated by its agents in cutting the 
wires of a rival line. Within a day's ride from the city in 
which I live, workingmen in a certain branch of industry are 
occasionally surprised to see in their morning's paper that 
they are on a strike, and to discover that one has been 
inaugurated by the manufacturers to convey the impression 
that their goods will be scarce, and thus work off a stock on 
hand. 1 

1 For an example of a manufacturer's incitement to riot in ancient 
.times, see Acts XIX, ff, 2^41 



36 THE LABOR MOVEMENT 

It is necessary to mention these cases to call attention to 
the fact that sometimes what appears to be a movement of 
labor is in reality a movement of capital, which, like labor, 
is at times unscrupulous. Instances of the kind described 
are undoubtedly far more numerous than is ordinarily 
supposed ; still they are the exception. When we hear of 
the laborer in these days, it is as a rule — provided we 
except discussions on the tariff — because he himself has 
made some move which has called attention to him. 

I find no traces of anything like/a modern trades-union 
in the colonial period of American history, and it is evident 
on reflection that there was little need, if any, of organiza- 
tion on the part of labor at that time. Unions of working- 
men always arise where there is a large and distinct laboring 
class gathered together in industrial centres ; but then there 
was scarcely such a class, and there was then no great city 
in the country ; for even in 1 790, when the first census was 
taken, there was but one city in the United States with a 
population between forty thousand and seventy-five thou- 
sand inhabitants, and it was not until 1840 that we could 
claim a city of half a million souls. The population was 
chiefly agricultural, and the labor of the farm was for the 
most part performed by independent farmers who tilled 
their own soil. Doubtless the " hired man" could always 
be found in the North, but no thought of organization 
occurred to him, and if there had been any reason for 
organization, his isolation, and the unsteady character of his 
employment, would have rendered it well-nigh impossible. 
But as an individual he could treat with his individual 
employer, and abundance of unoccupied land furnished 
him a frequent escape from a subordinate position. There 
were comparatively few slaves in the North, and these were 
employed in households or in separate occupations, and did 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 37 

not affect greatly the general condition of labor. The labor 
of the South, on the other hand, was performed chiefly by 
slaves until our late Civil War, and this fact rendered organ- 
ization impossible in that section. % 

Such manufacturing, as was found, consisted largely in the 
production of values-in-use. Clothing, for example, was 
spun and woven, and then converted into garments in the 
household for its various members. The artisans comprised 
chiefly the carpenter, the blacksmith, and the shoemaker ; 
many of whom worked in their own little shops with no 
employees, while the number of subordinates in any one 
shop was almost invariably small, and it would probably 
have been difficult to find a journeyman who did not expect, 
in a few years, to become an independent producer. 

What might be expected actually happened. Artisans and 
mechanics were a bold and spirited body of men who exerted 
an influence in affairs, though they do not appear in history 
as organizations pitted against their employers. "Below 
the merchants," says Professor Hosmer in his description of 
the people of Boston, 1 " the class of workmen formed a body 
most energetic. . . . The caulkers were bold politicians. 
The rope-walk hands were energetic to turbulence, courting 
the brawls with the soldiers which led to the ' Boston Mas- 
sacre/ " The " Caulkers' Club " was a body formed for 
political purposes, designed, in fact, " to lay plans for intro- 
ducing certain persons into places of trust and power." 2 
The father of Samuel Adams was prominent in it in 1724, 
and it is not improbable that the term caucus was derived 
from these workmen. 

The first years of the nineteenth century, however, wit- 
ness the beginning of a change, although the urban popula- 

1 See his " Samuel Adams " in the American Statesmen series. ' 

2 See "Samuel Adams," p. 15. 



38 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

tion of the country scarcely exceeded four per cent of the 

entire population. 'Something very like a modern strike 

occurred in the year 1802. The sailors in New York re- 

/ ceived ten dollars a month, but wished an increase of four 

/ dollars a month, and endeavored to enforce their demands 

by quitting work. It is said that they marched about the 

/ city, accompanied by a band, and compelled seamen, 

/ employed at il*e old wages, to leave their ships and join 
them. But the iniquitous combination and conspiracy laws, 
whi^ viewed concerted action of laborers as a crime, were 
then in force in all modern lands, and " the constables were 
soon in pursuit, arrested the leader, lodged him in jail, and 
so ended the earliest of labor strikes. ,, x 
* The most primitive form of labor organizations is the 
union of one class of employees in a single place with no 
connection with laborers working in other localities or at 
other caUings. Such unions are found here and there in 
the United States from 1800 to 1825, though they do not 
appear to have gained any considerable influence before the 
latter year. The " New York Society of Journeymen Ship- 
wrights " was incorporated April 3, 1803, and a union of 
the " House Carpenters of the City of New York " was in- 
corporated in 1806. 

The compositors of New York must have been organized 
early in the century, for they seem to have had a strong 
society in 181 7, when Thurlow Weed was elected a member. 
It was called the " New York Typographical Society,' ' and 
Peter Force was its President. In the following year the 

1 See McMaster's " History of the People of the United States, Vol. 
II., p. 618. 

Police interference is still everywhere lawful and, of course, proper, 
in case of recourse to violence, but then the combination of laborers 
in itself was generally regarded as illegal. 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 39 

society took advantage of Mr. WeecTs residence in Albany 
to secure its incorporation. " I remember," writes Mr. 
Weed, in his Autobiography, 1 " with what deference I then 
ventured into the presence of distinguished members of the 
legislature, and how sharply I was rebuked by two gentlemen 
who were quite shocked at the idea of incorporating jour- 
neymen mechanics. The application, however, was success- 
ful.' ' There was also a typographical society in Albany in 
182 1 ; for in that year a strike was ordered in the office in 
which Mr. Weed was employed, because one of the co: a ;os- 
itors was a "rat," as those printers are called who do not 
belong to a union. This shows the growth of a strong union 
feeling, and may be taken as evidence of some age on the 
part of the "Typographical Society " in that city. 

All these unions, it will be noticed, were located in New 
York State, and I find no record of a trades-union elsewhere 
until the " Columbian Charitable Society of Shipwrights and 
Caulkers of Boston and Charlestown " was formed in 1822. 
The following year they were granted a charter by the legis- 
lature of Massachusetts. Their charter empowered them 
" to have and use a common seal, and to make by-laws for 
the governing of the affairs of said association, and the 
management and application of its funds ; and also for pro- 
moting inventions and improvements in their art, by grant- 
ing premiums, to assist mechanics with loans of money, and 
to relieve the distresses of unfortunate mechanics and their 
families." 

Though the first quarter of this century may perhaps be 
considered as a germinal period, preceding the modern 
labor movement, and preparing the way for it, that move- 
ment itself, so far as it is represented by organizations of 
laborers designed to improve their condition as laborers, 

1 Page 69. 



40 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

may be regarded as beginning with the year 1825 ; not that 
any important event divided the history of labor before that 
period from its subsequent history, but that, roughly speak- 
ing, at about that time, a new spirit and anew purpose be- 
gan to animate the laboring classes. They became more 
conscious of their existence as a distinct part of the commu- 
nity, and with interests to a certain extent not identical with 
those of other social classes, and very naturally the idea of 
class action on a larger scale thaji hitherto became more 
familiar to workmen ; and from that time forward this idea 
has been cherished among them. It is easy then to charac- 
terize the movement of labor organizations during the first 
period of their history, in the United States, which may be 
said to terminate with the beginning of the Civil War be- 
tween North and South. 

An increasing number of local unions is formed ; at times 
unions of artisans of various trades in a certain section join 
hands for common action ; gradually the skilled laborers, 
pursuing the same trade, form the idea of national unions, 
urged on doubtless by the increased facilities of transporta- 
tion and communication which rendered national trade soci- 
eties at once possible and desirable, since the competition 
of artisans and mechanics with one another ceased to be 
local, and transcended the boundaries of several states. 
Early in our history, when travel was difficult and the post- 
office still in a primitive condition, it would have been well- 
nigh impossible to form any national union of laborers ; and 
the advantages of such association would have been less 
obvious at a time when each region of country was for most 
purposes a little world in itself. During this first period 
political action as an instrument of social amelioration is 
frequently urged, and we begin to hear of workingmen's 
parties. 



! 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 43 

Democratic party from 1829 to 1841 was more truly a work- 
ingman's party than has been the case with any other great 
political party in our country, or with that party either 
before or since. 

George Henry Evans became a friend of Horace Greeley, 
and followed with active interest the political movements of 
the country up to the time of his decease, which occurred 
about 1870. The younger brother, Frederick W. Evans, 
joined the Shakers at Mount Lebanon in 1831, and now one 
of their leading men is familiarly known among them as 
Elder Frederick. He still maintains his radical social views, 
and they form part of his religion. One of the three days I 
passed with the Shakers at Mount Lebanon, in the summer 
of 1885, was fortunately a Sunday, and I had the pleasure 
of listening to an address from Elder Frederick. I must 
confess that it sounded strange to me to hear the views I 
had associated with Henry George preached as part of a 
religious system ; and it was a surprise to me to learn that 
the Elder had been preaching them for fifty years and more. 

The next event to attract our attention in New York 
is an address delivered before " The General Trades-Unions 
of the City of New York," at Chatham Street Chapel, on 
Dec. 2, 1833, by Ely Moore, President of the Union. 
This General Trades-Union, as its name indicates, was a 
combination of subordinate unions " of the various trades 
and arts " in New York City and its vicinity, and is the 
earliest example in the United States, so far as I know, of 
those Central Labor Unions which attempt to unite all the 
workingmen in one locality in one body, and which have 
now become so common among us. 1 The address of Mr. 
Moore is characterized by a more modern tone than is 

1 They are also called Trades and Labor Assemblies, Trades and 
Labor Councils, and Federations of Labor in various places. 



44 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

found in most productions of the labor leaders of that 
period. The object of these unions is stated to be " to 
guard against the encroachments of aristocracy, to pre- 
serve our natural and political rights, to elevate our moral 
and intellectual condition, to promote our pecuniary inter- 
ests, to narrow the line of distinction between the journey- 
man and employer, to establish the honor and safety of 
our respective vocations upon a more secure and permanent 
basis, and to alleviate the distresses of those suffering from 
want of employment." 

The right of laborers to combine for the protection of 
their interests is vigorously maintained, and the position is 
taken that their General Trades-Union will diminish the 
number of strikes and lock-outs, and not increase them, as 
their opponents had claimed. Two extracts, quoted from 
their Constitution to show this, are as follows : " Each trade 
or art may represent to the Convention, through their dele- 
gate, their grievances, who shall take cognizance thereof, 
and decide upon the same." 

" No trade or art shall strike for higher wages than they 
at present receive without the sanction of the Convention." 

Two or three years later there was sufficient class feeling 
in New York to enable Mr. Moore to secure an election to 
Congress as a representative of the workingmen. 

" The Workingman's Manual : a New Theory of Political 
Economy, on the Principle of Production the Source of 
Wealth, including an Enquiry into the Principles of Public 
Currency, the Wages of Labor, the Production of Wealth, 
the Distribution of Wealth, Consumption of Wealth, Popular 
Education, and the Elements of Social Government in Gen- 
eral, as they appear open to the Scrutiny of Common Sense 
and Philosophy of the Age ; " — all this is the long and am- 
bitious title of a noteworthy book written by Stephen Simp- 






LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 45 

son, of Philadelphia, and published in that city in the year 
1 83 1. It bears the motto "Governments were instituted 
for the happiness of the many, not the benefit of the few," 
and is dedicated " to the shade of Jefferson.' ' 

Like the address of Ely Moore in New York, this work 
gives evidence of a good deal of previous agitation of the 
labor problem. The working classes are told that the old 
political parties offer them no hope of satisfactory reforms, 
and they are urged to support the " Party of the Working- 
men/ J which, "resisting the seductions of fanatics on the 
one hand and demagogues on the other," presses forward 
in "the path of science and justice, under the banner of 
labor the source of wealth, and industry the arbiter of its 

. distribution" 

The economic evils of the country are explained, and 
remedies for them are pointed out. 

Jefferson is lauded by Simpson for " the Declaration of 
our Independence ; for the abolishment of the laws of en- 
tail and primogeniture, and other sanative and benevolent 
schemes, having for their object, the equalization of fortunes, 
the just distribution of property, and the diffusive happi- 
ness of the whole people." But objection is raised to the 
alleged fact that the " Declaration of Independence " is still 
only a body of theoretical principles, because feudal laws 
and customs, as well as European fashions, sentiments, and 
literature, have maintained old-world abuses among us ; never- 
theless, forcible equalization of fortunes is repudiated as a worse 
injustice, if possible, than the present system. Measures are 
urged, designed to prevent monopoly, and to apportion the 
product of industry among the members of the community, 
more nearly in proportion to services rendered to society. It 

- is urged, that although labor is the source of wealth, — since 
"natural agents are but the basis of human industry," — 



46 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

those who toil not live in luxury, while the honest laborer 
suffers the pangs of hunger. Nature has furnished sufficient 
means for the comfort of all, but unjust arrangements have 
brought such a state of things to pass, that the lord of ten 
thousand acres is " tortured on his sick couch by the agonies 
of repletion, whilst the laborer famishes at his gate." 

The chief sources of unjust inequality in the distribution 
of wealth are found in the " funding system," which led to 
the monopoly of stock, and those royal grants which led to 
the monopoly of land, and regret is expressed that royal 
titles to land were not forever abolished when the Federal 
Constitution was adopted. 

A third source of injustice is found in the Common Law 
of England, which grew up in an aristocratical and monarchi- 
cal country, and as not suitable for a republic, ought not to 
have been adopted in this country. 

\The remedies proposed are simple. Violence and blood- 
shed are condemned, and the intelligent use of the ballot is 
commended. Public opinion ought to be educated so that 
labor may become respectable ; for now, the writer com- 
plains, " the children of toil are as much shunned in society 
as if they were leprous convicts just emerged from loath- 
some cells." ] 

Corporations and monopolies, continues our author, ought 
to be discouraged, for " capital, banks, and monopolies," as 
oppressors of the people, have taken the place of the barons, 
lords, and bishops of Old England. The condemnation of 
the old combination laws is rather bitter, though certainly 
just. "If mechanics combine to raise their wages," says 
Simpson, " the laws punish them as conspirators against the 
good of society, and the dungeon awaits them as it does the 
robber. But the laws have made it a just and meritorious 
act that capitalists shall combine to strip the man of labor 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 47 

of his earnings, and reduce him to a dry crust and a gourd 
of water." 

Imprisonment for debt is condemned as another grave 
abuse, and its abolition is urged on economic as well as on 
humanitarian grounds, since the removal of power to im- 
prison the debtor would lead to the curtailment of dis- 
astrous grants of credit. Remarks on paper money and in- 
flation, as evils which have brought severe suffering to the 
working classes, deserve the attention of our " Greenbackers " 
at the present time. 

The chief remedy, however, is that which we find recom- 
mended by all agitators in the early days of the labor move- 
ment ; namely, universal education. Public instruction was 
claimed by the party of the workingmen, but their demand 
was met " by the sneer of derision on the one hand, and the 
cry of revolution on the other." 

There are abundant evidences of widespread discussion 
of labor-problems in New England, and particularly in 
Massachusetts, at this time. One of these is a pamphlet 
which lies before me, entitled "An Address before the 
Workingmen's Society," of Dedham (Mass.), delivered on 
the evening of Sept. 7, 1831, by Samuel Whitcomb, Jr. 
Whitcomb takes the same view of the injustice of the pres- 
ent distribution of the product of industry, which we have 
found presented in Simpson's Manual, and he rejoices in 
the organization of workingmen's associations, as institutions 
designed to correct abuses, and resist the " encroachment oi 
foreign influence and evil example on our moral and political 
welfare." Chiefly noteworthy is the allusion to workingmen's 
associations as something comparatively new, yet becoming 
common. 

More remarkable is " an Address to the Workingmen of 
New England, on the State of Education, and on the Con- 



48 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

dition of the Producing Classes in Europe and America/ 1 
which was delivered by Seth Luther in Boston, Charlestown, 
Cambridgeport, Waltham, Dorchester, Mass. ; Portland, Saco, 
Me.; and Dover, N.H. The copyright is dated 1832, and 
the third edition was printed in Philadelphia in 1836. 

The protectionists were then lauding the " splendid exam- 
ple " of England, and endeavoring to persuade the American 
people that manufactures ought to be developed even at the 
I expense of public aid. An assemblage of manufacturers at 
Concord, Mass., had gone still further, and adopted a reso- 
lution " that they had rather have this union dissolved than 
to have the protecting policy given up," and John Quincy 
/ Adams had declared in a report on manufactures, that the 
\ cotton-mills were "the principalities of the destitute, the 
palaces of the poor." /This naturally led Mr. Luther, a me- 
chanic, to investigate 'the condition of the manufacturing 
population of England and the United States, in order to 
i determine whether manufactures were after all so desirable 
when viewed from the standpoint of the laboring classes. 

His pamphlet is valuable for the light it throws on the 
hours of labor, the wages of employees in manufactories, 
and the abuses of power on the part of some unscrupulous 
manufacturers. I know of no stronger proof of an improve- 
ment in the condition of the manufacturing population of 
New England than that which is found in Seth Luther's 
address and in the " appendix," which is possibly still more 
important on account of the reprint it contains of original 
documents, like the " General Rules of the Lowell Manufac- 
turing Company" and "The Conditions on which Help is 
hired by the Cocheo Manufacturing Company, Dover, N.H." 
Distressing cases of cruelty to children are described in 
detail by Seth Luther, and the amount of child labor in cer- 
tain districts must have been relatively almost as great as at 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 49 

present, though it does not seem to have prevailed so gen- 
erally throughout the country. 

The length of a day's labor varied from twelve to fifteen 
hours. The New England Mills generally ran thirteen hours 
a day the year round, but one mill in Connecticut ran four- 
teen hours, while the length of actual labor in another mill 
in the same State, the Eagle Mill at Griswold, was fifteen 
hours and ten minutes. The regulations at Paterson, New 
Jersey, required women and children to be at work at half- 
past four in the morning. 

The regulations of the factory were cruel and oppressive 
to a degree, I think, scarcely known among us at present. 
Operatives were taxed by the companies for the support of 
religion ; habitual absence from church was punished by the 
Lowell Manufacturing Company with dismissal from employ- 
ment, and in other respects the life of the employees out- 
side of the factories was regulated as well as their life within 
them. Windows were nailed down and the operatives de- 
prived of fresh air, and a case of rebellion on the part of 
one thousand females on account of tyrannical and oppressive 
treatment is mentioned. Women and children were urged 
on by the use of a cowhide, and an instance is given of a 
little girl, eleven years of age, whose leg was broken with a 
"billet of wood." Still more harrowing is the description of 
the merciless whipping of a deaf-and-dumb boy by an over- 
seer named Bryant. An " eye-witness" said "when he came 
in (at home), he lay down on the bed like one without life. 
. . . He was mangled in a shocking manner, from his neck 
to his feet. He received, I should think, one hundred 
blows." At Mendon, Mass., a boy of twelve drowned him- 
self in a pond to escape factory labor. 

The wages were small. The " United Hand- Loom Weav- 
ers' Trade Association of Baltimore," reported in 1835*, that 



-^ 



.? 



50 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

they could earn in twelve hours from sixty-five cents to sev- 
enty-one cents a day, which, they said, did not enable them 
to defray the expenses " of the schooling " of their children. 

Mr. Luther enlarges on the evils of the manufacturing 
population, but says little about remedies. He recommends, 
however, general education and the abolition of the oppres- 
sive combination laws, so that laborers might unite their 
forces like their employers. The hostile attitude of the press 
is classed as one of their difficulties, but it is stated that a 
remedy will be found in workingmen's papers, which " are 
multiplying. " Finally, the bitter denunciation which trades- 
unions and combinations of laborers received at this time 
from the employing class is worthy of attention. A combi- 
nation of merchants in Boston pledged themselves to drive 
the shipwrights, caulkers, and gravers of that city to sub- 
mission or starvation, and subscribed $20,000 for that 
purpose. 

An important meeting of the laboring classes was held 
in Boston in February, 1831. Of this no record appears 
to have been preserved, but the first report of the Massa- 
chusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, issued in 1870, 
contains an account of the second meeting of the same 
body, held in Boston, Sept. 6, 1832. The organization 
was known as the " New England Association of Farmers, 
Mechanics, and other Workingmen. ,, Boston was rep- 
resented by thirty delegates, and among them were men 
who afterward achieved at least a local celebrity. Ten 
points for consideration were reported, among which were 
these : the ten-hour working day ; the effect of banking 
institutions and other monopolies on the condition of 
the laboring classes ; the improvement of the educational 
system ; imprisonment for debt ; a national bankrupt law ; 
the extension of the right of suffrage in States where it 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 51 

was restricted ; a lien law in favor of journeyman mechanics. 
Resolutions were adopted in favor of annual meetings, in 
favor of a lien law, against imprisonment for debt, and 
against the militia system. A journal called the "New Eng- 
land Artisan" was recognized as the official organ of the as- 
sociation. From the report of the committee on an address 
to the workingmen, the following statement of grievances and 
remedies is taken : " These evils . . . arise from the moral 
obliquity of the fastidious and the cupidity of the avaricious. 
! They consist in an illiberal opinion of the worth and rights 
of the laboring classes ; an unjust estimation of their moral, 
intellectual, and physical powers ; an unwise misapprehen- 
sion of the effects which would result from the cultivation of 
their minds and the improvement of their condition ; and an 
avaricious propensity to avail of their laborious services at 
the lowest possible rate of wages for which they can be 
induced to work. The remedies which are relied on to cor- 
( rect these misapprehensions and reform these abuses are 
the organization of the whole laboring population of this 
United Republic into an association for this purpose ; the 
separation of questions of political morality and economy 
from the mere personal and party contests of the day; a 
general diffusion of light by the presentation of facts to the 
J consideration of all good men and faithful citizens ; the 
selection from among the politicians of the respective 
I parties to which workingmen may happen to belong, of those 
1 as the objects of our preference whose moral character, per- 
sonal habits, relations, and employments, as well as profes- 
\ sions, afford us the best guarantee of their disposition to 
I revise our social and political system, and to introduce those 
( improvements called for by us and demanded by the spirit 
! of the age. 

" To this we shall add our fixed determination to persevere 



\ 

V 



52 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

till our wrongs are redressed, and to imbue the minds of 
our offspring with a spirit of abhorrence for the usurpations 
of aristocracy, and of resistance to their oppressions, so 
invincible, that they shall dedicate their lives to a comple- 
tion of the work which their ancestors commenced in their 
struggle for national, and their sires have continued in their 
contest for personal independence." During this meeting — 
held, as has been stated, in 1832 — a letter was received from 
the workingmen of New York City, addressed to the working- 
men of the United States, which, lik£ much that has been 
already said, shows general agitation and a certain concert of 
action in what are now called labor circles. 

This earlier stage of the labor movement has been de- 
scribed with so much fulness because it is peculiarly instruc- 
tive on several accounts. It shows, first, that grievances of the 
laboring classes in the United States are no new thing ; second, 
that the pretensions of the wealthy irritated the masses in 
America fifty years ago ; third, that progress has been made, 
many of the demands of the laboring classes at that time 
having been already granted ; fourth, that what one gener- 
ation considered dangerous and possibly even revolutionary 
claims, a later has learned to look upon as just and natural. 
As has often happened, concessions on the part of those in 
whose hands the powers of government and society reside, 
have resulted in benefit to all classes. Perhaps one may be 
tempted to conclude that the social salvation of society, like 
the religious salvation of the world, comes from below. The 
masses move forward ; their onward motion is resisted by the 
so-called better classes — and it is possible one ought to say, 
rightly called better classes ; but the advance-march con- 
tinues, and what was thought an ominous signal of danger 
proves to be but an olive-branch of peace. The truths of 
economic and social science have frequently been among 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 53 

those things which are hid from the wise and prudent and 
revealed unto babes. 

It is, however, more correct to compare the legitimate 
functions of the upper classes of society to those of an upper 
house of a legislature. It is, indeed, very necessary that 
measures initiated by the masses should be examined and 
discussed by the more learned, prudent, and cautious among 
the upper ten thousand, who should at times exercise a 
controlling and restraining power over popular movements 
in the interest of society as a whole. It is further desirable 
that representatives of wealth and culture should always be 
found in the lower house ; in other words, thoroughly iden- 
tified with the masses, yet bringing into their movements an 
elevated and refined tone. The misfortune is that those who 
ought to play the part of prudent advisers are too often in- 
i clined to stop the march of progress altogether. The con- 
servative becomes an obstructionist, and arouses an angry 
cry for the abolition of every influence which tends to retard 
a too rapid social reconstruction. Thus do revolutions 
come ! 

The laboring classes were not without powerful friends 
in those early days, for among those whose hearts were 
with the masses are found the names of William Ellery 
Channing, James G. Carter, Robert Rantoul, and Horace 
Mann. Greatest stress was at this time laid upon the 
diffusion of education and the improvement of educational 
methods and systems. That is the burden of Channing's 
message to the workingmen in his celebrated lectures on 
" Self-Culture" and on the "Laboring Classes. " Channing 
was not merely full of sympathy with the masses who bear 
the burden and heat of the day ; what is still more, he had 
faith in their integrity, in their wisdom, and in their capabil- 
ities for improvement. To those who saw danger in the 



54 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

extension of power and freedom to the laboring classes, and 
feared a conspiracy of the needy against the rich, he uttered 
these vigorous words of remonstrance : " It ought to be 
understood that the great enemies to society are not found 
in its poorer ranks. The mass may indeed be used as tools ; 
but the stirring and guiding powers of insurrection are found 
above. Communities fall by the vices of the prosperous 
ranks. . . . The French Revolution is perpetually sounded 
in our ears as a warning. . . . But whence came this rev- 
olution? Who were the regicides r\ . . They were Louis 
the Fourteenth and the Regent who followed him, and Louis 
the Fifteenth. These brought their descendants to the guil- 
lotine. The priesthood who revoked the Edict of Nantes, 
and drove from France the skill and industry and virtue and 
piety which were the sinews of her strength ; the statesmen 
who intoxicated Louis the Fourteenth with the scheme of 
universal empire ; the profligate, prodigal, shameless Orleans ; 
and the still more brutalized Louis the Fifteenth, with his 
court of panders and prostitutes, — they made the nation 
bankrupt, broke asunder the bond of loyalty, and over- 
whelmed the throne and altars in ruins." 

Horace Mann, while laying the foundations of the best 
educational system in the United States, attempted at the 
same time to secure its advantages for the humblest mem- 
bers of the community, and with this in view he strove to 
introduce measures which would effectually protect children 
when their right to an opportunity to acquire at least the 
elements of learning should be attacked either by cruel 
master or heartless parent. Carter and Rantoul were 
active in the same field, while the latter vindicated the 
right of laborers to combine, in the well-known " Journeyman 
Bootmakers' Case." Their combination had been attacked 
under the old conspiracy laws of odious memory, which the 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 55 

Common Law had brought to America ; but the case was 
decided for the journeymen in 1842, and this decision was 
final, as the legality of labor organizations has since then not 
been contested in Massachusetts. 

The topic of liveliest interest among the working classes 
in the United States from the earliest time up to the present 
day has been what is called the normal working day ; that 
is, the number of hours which should constitute the regular 
day's labor. When our ancestors came to this country, their 
poverty and the abundant opportunity for the acquisition of 
wealth spurred them to over-exertion, often short-sighted ; 
for while it brought the eagerly coveted riches, it ruined 
health, dwarfed the mind, and stunted the development of 
all higher faculties. When the means of enjoyment were 
acquired, all power of enjoyment was gone. In gaining 
life, they had lost those things which made life worth living ; 
or, as the Bible has it, they had lost their own souls, their 
true selves. This is familiar, but the fact has not received 
equal attention that they were likewise hard task-masters. 
Not content with overworking themselves, they drove wife, 
children, and employees from sunrise to sunset, for the " sun 
to sun" system prevailed generally in our early history. 
This involved at times a normal working day of sixteen 
hours. The laborers early protested against this, and the 
agitation for ten hours is as old as the labor movement in 
this country, and it is still continued in some parts of the 
United States, though in most places it ceased long ago, 
because it had accomplished its purpose. Just at the right 
time, when the conflict of the laborers for shorter hours had 
already made considerable headway, one whom the working- 
men considered a friend, Martin Van Buren, the President, 
threw the weight of government into the trembling balance 
and decided the issue. On the 10th of April, 1840, Mr. 



56 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Van Buren signed a general order introducing the ten-hour 
system thereafter into the navy-yard at Washington, D.C., 
and in "all public establishments." This example was fol- 
lowed in private ship-yards, and very soon became general, 
though by no means universal. At the time Gen. Oliver 
made his first report, to which I have already referred, 
and to which I am indebted for many data concerning 
the early labor movement, the time of labor in factories 
where women and children were employed in New England 
was sixty-six to seventy-two hours a week. Within this year 
seventeen and eighteen hours have been a common length of 
a day's labor on the street railways of the United States ; and 
though the laborers have been able to shorten it by organi- 
zations and strikes in many cities, it doubtless still continues 
in places. Employees of steam railways are often worked 
as long, and even longer, to the danger of the life and limb 
of the general public as well as their own. But the most 
overworked men in the country in recent times have been 
the bakers. Once a week in Baltimore they have worked 
steadily for twenty-five hours, and in New York for twenty- 
six — a normal working day considerably longer it is seen 
than the solar day ! 

The ten-hour day was established in Baltimore a few years 
before President Van Buren's general order. The laborers 
of that city stopped work and paraded the streets with 
drum and fife, proclaiming to the world that ten hours 
should constitute a day's labor thereafter. The conflict was 
decided in a week in favor of the workingmen, and for fifty 
years men have as a rule worked but ten hours a day in 
Baltimore. 

The first widespread labor agitation in the United States 
seems to have reached a climax about 1835, i n which year I 
see mention made of a National Trades-Union, although I 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 57 

have been able to find nothing further about it than that 
Seth Luther was one of its delegates. 1 

Organized movement of the masses continued, but in a 
rather feeble way, until towards the close of the late war. 
In 1845 an agitation for the reduction of the hours of labor 
in the factories of Massachusetts was begun, and was carried 
on with some vigor until 1852, when the employers effected 
a compromise by a reduction of two hours a week ; namely, 
from sixty-eight to sixty-six hours, which then became the 
rule. 2 Among those who broke a lance for the laborers at 
this time was William Claflin, later governor of the State, 
who came out openly in favor of the ten-hour day. 

The decade preceding the Civil War is remarkable in the 
American labor movement, for the number of trades-unions 
which were then organized on a national basis. First among 
these to attract our attention is the International Typo- 
graphical Union, which may be traced back to 1850, when a 
" National Convention of Journeymen Printers " met in 
New York. The year following, a meeting was held in 
Baltimore ; but the formal permanent organization was not 
effected until 1852, when the printers met in Cincinnati. 
The name then adopted was National Typographical Union, 
which was changed to International Typographical Union 

1 In 1835 several members of the New York City delegation to the 
State Legislature were elected on the " Workingmen's Ticket." Among 
these were Thomas Hertell and Job Haskell, a carman. See Thurlow 
Weed's Autobiography, p. 406. 

2 Petitions were sent to the Massachusetts Legislature in favor of 
the ten-hour day, and a special legislative committee made a report on 
this subject in 1845. One °f tne petitioners, John Quincy Adams 
Thayer, published a pamphlet on the subject, entitled " Review of the 
Report of the Special Committee of the Legislature," etc., in which he 
controverted the objection that " ten hours a day would be impracti- 
cable." 






58 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

at the annual meeting in Albany, N.Y., in 1869, so as to 
include printers working in Canada. And it may be said in 
this connection that this is the usual meaning of international 
as a part of the title of American trades-unions. International 
unions include Americans outside of the United States, chiefly 
Canadians, and very few of them include Europeans. The 
International Typographical Union is the oldest existing 
American trades-union ; and this is an interesting fact, since 
the American labor movement in this respect resembles the 
labor movement elsewhere. Very/ generally we find the ( 
printers among the pioneers in the organization of labor, for 
which, I suppose, no other reason can be given than their 
superior intelligence. In Italy, France, and Germany we 
find the printers' unions among the oldest and strongest of 
existing labor organizations. 

The beginnings of the International Typographical Union 
were humble, and, when compared with its present position, 
insignificant. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mary- 
land, and Kentucky were the only States represented at the 
convention in 1850. 1 Now, nearly, if not quite, every State 
in the Union, and several of the Territories, are represented 
at the annual sessions. When the Typographical Unioc 
assumed the prefix " International/ ' the total membership 
was 7,563 ; at the close of the year 1884-85 it was 18,000, 
and is said to have increased 10,000 since the Report of 
July, 1885. At one time the hostility of employers against 
the union was very general ; now it is recognized, with few 
exceptions, in all great printing-offices of the country, and 
many employers support and assist it as a beneficial organi- 
zation. This is notably the case with Mr. Childs, of the 
" Public Ledger," who ranks among the great employers of 

1 The oldest local union represented was the Baltimore Typograph- 
ical Society, established in November, 1831. 






LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 59 

/abor in the country. In addition to previous gifts, Mr. Childs, 
with Mr. Drexel, a banker, sent the union a check for 
$10,000, at their meeting in 1886, — an example well worthy 
of imitation on the part of other employers. The printers 
have a creditable organ in the Craftsman, a weekly news- 
paper published in Washington, D. C. 

The hatters followed the printers in this country in 1854, 
and again the resemblance to the labor movement elsewhere 
is maintained ; and this not merely with respect to date of 
organization, but with respect to general characteristics. 
Probably no unions preserve so many of the characteristics 
of the associations of journeymen in the old guilds. This 
similarity is doubtless partly cause, partly effect, of the 
active correspondence and general connection maintained 
by the unions in Europe and America, although they are not 
organized on an international basis. 

The National Trade Association of Hat Finishers of the 
United States of America was organized in 1854, but in 
1868 was divided into two organizations ; the one keeping 
the old name, and the other changing it by the insertion of 
" Silk and Fur," and becoming the Silk and Fur Hat Finishers' 
Trade Association of the United States of America. The 
general purpose is the protection of mutual interests of jour- 
neymen; but special attention is given to the subject of 
apprenticeship, in order that the supply of journeymen may 
not become excessive. The number of members of the 
National Trade Association of Hat Finishers reported in 1885 
was 3,015 journeymen and 377 apprentices — a total of 
3,392. This shows growth, for the census report has only 
2,077 m 1S79, an d 2 >36i in 1880. 

The Silk and Fur Hat Finishers are a smaller body, num- 
bering at the close of the year 1883, 584 journeymen and 

9 apprentices — a total of 643. 



60 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

The union called the "Sons of Vulcan," one of three 
unions which, consolidated, became the Amalgamated Associ- 
ation of Iron and Steel Workers, in 1876, was established 
on April 17, 1858. More will be said about the Amalga- 
mated Association presently. 

A more remarkable trades-union, the "Iron Moulders' 
Union of North America" was founded on July 5, 1859, by 
William H. Sylvis, a labor leader who has left a deep impress 
on the labor movement in the United States. The story 
of his life, interesting and instructive, and withal not devoid 
of a certain pathos, is told in th6 " Life, Speeches, Labors, 
and Essays of William H. Sylvis," by his brother James G. 
Sylvis, and is well worthy perusal ; 1 for it shows in the con- 
crete the struggles, the aspirations, the mode of life, and 
manner of thought of one who attained an elevated position 
as a workingman among workingmen. 

A once strong union, the Machinists' and Blacksmiths' 
Union of North America was founded in 1859, and was incor- 
porated by Congress in 1859 ; the only union which, so far 
as I know, ever received a charter from the United States 
Government. This body was composed of smiths and 
machine-makers at first, but afterwards, boiler-makers and 
pattern-makers were added, and in 1877 it took the name of 
Mechanical Engineers of the United States of America. Its 
membership amounted to 18,000 in 1872, but had fallen to 
5,000 in 1878 ; 2 and if it still exists, it must lead a very 
quiet life. t 

It is stated that twenty-six trades had national organiza- 
tions in i860. 



1 Published in Philadelphia in 1872, by Claxton, Remsen, & Haf- 
felfinger. 

2 See Farnam's brochure, " Die Amerikanischen Gewerkvereine." 
Leipzig, 1879, Seite 18. 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 61 

Second Period. 1861-1 886. 

The era of the Civil War brought men together, opened 
new avenues of communication between various parts of the 
country, stirred the minds of men mightily, setting them to 
think deeply on social and economic topics, and finally 
brought into prominence a vast number of labor problems, 
due to fluctuations of the currency, to rapid changes from 
prosperity to adversity, and also to the sudden and marvellous 
accumulation of wealth in hands of successful business men 
and lucky adventurers. Never before were there such sharp 
contrasts in the country between riches and poverty. If this 
was a misfortune in itself, a still greater evil was found in 
the fact that no "inconsiderable part of this wealth was 
acquired by devices which could not be made to square with 
the morality of the decalogue, to say nothing about the 
higher ethical code which Christianity has brought us. 
Another cause of the growth of trades-unions was the aboli- 
tion of slavery, which had operated in two different ways 

j favorably to the progress of the labor movement. The discus- 
sion concerning slave labor naturally led to reflection on the 
condition of free laborers and their rights, and some of those 

\ who had taken an active part in abolitionism passed over 
into the ranks of those who were endeavoring to elevate the 

j laboring classes. Again the universal freedom of the laboring 
classes from the yoke of slavery could not fail to have an 
elevating influence on those engaged in manual toil. Yet 
more important in its ultimate effect was the fact that this 
vast country now opened an unobstructed field for the labor 
movement. Two other especially weighty circumstances 
must not fail to be mentioned. First, the concentration of 
the laboring classes in large establishments in great industrial 
centres had continued without interruption ; second, during 



62 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

the war native labor had in many quarters been replaced by 
foreign labor, and race antagonism added intensity to the 
natural struggle between employer and employed. It is not 
then surprising that during the closing years of the war, and 
during the five succeeding years, a vast number of labor or- 
ganizations were founded. Before enumerating some of the 
more important of them, it is well to call attention to the 
enlarged horizon of labor leaders during this period of the 
movement now under consideration. New unions were 
called International ; old unions took that name, and under 
an impulse received from the International Working Peo- 
ple's Association, founded by Carl Marx, there began to be a 
reaching out on the part of the laboring classes for closer 
old-world connections. As improvements in the means of 
communication and transportation had aided the transforma- 
tion of local unions into national unions ; so still further 
improvements in this direction promoted the growth of In- 
ternationalism. These facilities of communication and trans- 
portation were in each case both cause and effect. 

One of the most successful labor organizations is the first 
one of the great trades-unions, founded during the war 
period, and is composed of locomotive engineers, or engine- 
drivers, as our English cousins would say. It was insti- 
tuted at Detroit, Aug. 17, 1863, and was then called the 
"Brotherhood of the Foot-board." It was reorganized at 
Indianapolis, Aug. 17, 1864, under the name and title of 
the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi- 
neers. 

The year 1864 witnessed the birth of a powerful body in 
the Cigar Makers' National Union, which in 1867 was ex- 
tended to Canada, and became international in name as well 
as in fact. There had been a previous attempt to form an 
organization, and the cigar-makers of New York called a 






LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 63 

convention in 1856, in which employers took part. The aim 
was to equalize prices for labor throughout the State. The 
first local union of cigar-makers appears to have been formed 
in Baltimore, in 1851. 

The Bricklayers' and Masons' International Union of 
America was formed on the 17th of October, 1865, an( ^ ^ 
may be well to interrupt this enumeration by the quotation 
of the " Preamble " found in the printed copy of the con- 
stitution. It may be regarded as typical, though many of 
the "preambles" to the constitutions of labor organizations 
breathe a more conservative tone, while few are more radi- 
cal. Others will be found reprinted in the Appendix. 

The Preamble reads as follows : " At no period of the 
world's history has the necessity of combination on the part 
of labor become so apparent to any thinking mind as at the 
present time ; and perhaps in no country have the working 
classes been so forgetful of their own interests as in this great 
republic. 

" All other questions seem to attract the attention of the 
workingman more than that which is most vital to his exist- 
ence. 

" Whereas, Capital has assumed to itself the right to own 
and control labor for the accomplishment of its own greedy 
and selfish ends, regardless of the laws of Nature and 
Nature's God \ and whereas, experience has demonstrated 
the utility of concentrated efforts in arriving at specific ends, 
and it is an evident fact that if the dignity of labor is to be 
preserved, it must be done by our united action; and 
whereas, Believing the truth of the following maxims, that 
they who would be free themselves must strike the blow, 
that in union there is strength, and self-preservation is the 
first law of nature, we hold the justice and truth of the prin- 
ciple that merit makes the man ; and we firmly believe that 






64 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

industry, sobriety, and a proper regard for the welfare of our 
fellow-men form the basis upon which the principle rests ; we 
therefore recognize no rule of action or principle that would 
elevate wealth above industry, or the professional man above 
the workingman. We recognize no distinction in society 
except those based upon worth, usefulness, and good order ; 
and no superiority except that granted by the Great Archi- 
tect of our existence ; and calling upon God to witness the 
rectitude of our intentions, we, the delegates, here assem- 
bled, ordain and establish the following Constitution." 

The Conductors' Brotherhood was organized in 1868, at 
Mendota, 111. ; but it changed its name at its eleventh annual 
meeting, and has since been known as the Order of Railway 
Conductors. 

The United States Wool Hat Finishers' Association was 
organized in 1869, and four years later the furniture-workers 
joined hands under the name "Trades-Union of Furniture 
Workers" (Gewerkschaftsunion von Mobelarbeiter) , which 
was subsequently changed to International Furniture Work- 
ers' Union of America. Though this is one of the smaller 
societies of the United States, it is influential by reason of its 
vigor and activity. It is composed chiefly of Germans, and 
is one of the more radical unions. 1 The Brotherhood of 
Locomotive Firemen was formed in the same year, and was 
followed in 1875 by the organization of the horseshoers in 
Philadelphia. This association is called the National Union 
of Horseshoers of the United States. It is composed chiefly 
of Irishmen. 

The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, 

1 At the present time it may be well to state that I do not mean by 
radical, violent and revolutionary, or anarchistic. No national labor 
organization supports the theory of anarchy, but several, as we shall 
see, favor far-reaching but peaceful social and industrial changes. 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 65 

the strongest trades-union 1 in the country, was formed in 
1876 by the consolidation of three unions : namely, the Sons 
of Vulcan, already mentioned, the Associated Brotherhood 
of Iron and Steel Heaters, and the Iron and Steel Roll 
Hands' Union, of which the two latter were organized in 

i873. 

The Granite Cutters' National Union of the United States 

of America was organized in 1877 ; the Brotherhood of Car- 
penters and Joiners of America, in 1881 ; the Cigar Makers' 
Progressive Union of America, in 1882 ; the National Hat 
Makers', in 1883; the Railroad Brakemen, in 1884. The 
coal-miners formed a National Federation in 1885, and illus- 
trated a natural order of growth. Local societies formed 
first State organizations, but improved facilities of communi- 
cation and transportation have brought the various parts of 
the country so near together that the necessity of national 
organization has been keenly felt for some time. 

The Journeymen Bakers' National Union of the United 
States was organized in Pittsburg in January, 1886, and has 
probably done as much to improve the condition of its 
members, a most unfortunate class heretofore, as has ever 
been accomplished by any American trades-union in the 
same time ; though the good done has unfortunately been 
attended with considerable friction between employers and 
employees, for which the blame must undoubtedly be shared 
by both sides. 

Other trades-unions which must be mentioned are the 
following : The Chicago Seamen's Union, the United Order 
of Carpenters and Joiners, the Plasterers' National Union, 
the Journeymen Tailors' National Union of the United 

1 Several other stronger organizations which will be mentioned 
are not trades-unions, but associations of laborers of various occupa- 
tions, or combinations of different unions, or both. 



66 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

States, Deutsch-Amerikanische Typographia (composed of 
those setting type for German books or periodicals), Ameri- 
can Flint Glass Workers, and the Universal Federation of 
Window Glass Workers. Workingmen who have national 
or international organizations of which I am not acquainted 
with the precise names are the boiler-makers, book-keepers 
(clerks included), bottle-blowers, stationary engineers, metal- 
workers, piano-makers, plumbers, railroad switchmen, shoe- 
lasters, spinners, stereotypers, telegraphers, silk-weavers, 
wood-carvers. y 

Although there are omissions in this enumeration, it con- 
tains a complete list, I believe, of the more important 
national and international American trades-unions. It must 
be remembered, however, in any estimate of the strength of 
American trades-unions, that there are still a vast number of 
independent local organizations. It is not at all improbable 
that there may be as many as one hundred such in the city 
of New York, and they will be found in every large Ameri- 
can city. The strongest of these local unions, so far as I 
know, is the Journeymen Bricklayers' Protective Association 
of Philadelphia, which was organized in 1880, and now 
embraces nearly two thousand members. On the 19th of 
October this association dedicated the Bricklayers' Hall. 
The building situated at the corner of Broad Street and Fair- 
mount Avenue in Philadelphia, was constructed at a cost of 
$52,000, and is probably the finest building owned by an 
American trades-union. The national trades-unions may, 
roughly speaking, be said to vary in strength from two to 
twenty-five thousand members to each. The latter number 
is about the strength of the Amalgamated Association of 
Iron and Steel Workers and the International Typographical 
Union. Several unions have from ten to fifteen or sixteen 
thousand members, while five, six, and seven thousand 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 67 

members is a common number. A few foreign trade socie- 
ties have members in America. The two most prominent 
of these are the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Ma- 
chinists, Millwrights, Smiths, and Pattern Makers, founded 
in 185 1, in England, and the Amalgamated Society of Car- 
penters and Joiners, established in i860, which is likewise a 
British Association. These two unions together have several 
thousand American members. 

Nearly all the more prominent organizations have monthly 
or weekly organs ; as, for example, l^he Carpenter, The 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers' Monthly Journal, 
Iron Moulders 1 Monthly Journal, Firemen's Magazine, 
Progress, issued by the Cigar Makers* Progressive Union, 
Cigar Makers' 1 Official Journal, issued by the Cigar 
Makers' International Union, The Granite Cutters' Jour- 
nal, The American Glass Worker, Furniture Workers* 
Journal, etc. These are fairly well edited ; some of them, 
it must be said, excellently, when one considers that their 
editors are workingmen whose educational opportunities 
have been comparatively slight. The fact that many of 
these journals are printed in several languages is significant, 
and is characteristic of the labor press. It is an indication 
of the internationalism of the labor movement in the United 
States. The greater part of the papers is generally in Eng- 
lish, but next to English the German is the language most 
used. French and Bohemian articles are occasionally found. 

Many trades-unions, and other labor organizations, estab- 
lished during various periods in our history, have perished \ 
but it is not necessary to mention more than one or two of 
these in this place. Probably the strongest of all the defunct 
organizations was the order called the " Knights of St. Crispin," 
which was established on an international basis in 1869, and 
included at one time nearly a hundred thousand members. 



68 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

The local unions were called lodges, and these were joined 
together in State or Provincial grand lodges, which, in turn, 
were represented in the International Grand Lodge, the 
supreme power of the order. There were State or Provin- 
cial grand lodges in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Kentucky, California, Ontario, New 
Brunswick, and elsewhere. A separate branch, composed of 
women, was called the " Daughters of St. Crispin." 

The Knights of St. Crispin obtained great influence in the 
boot and shoe manufacturing establishments of the country, 
and used it to advance their interest. The order was 
recognized by a large number of well-disposed manufacturers 
for a time, and many disputes were settled amicably by arbi- 
tration. 

Their efforts were also directed to legislative reforms, and 
the ten-hour law passed in Massachusetts in 1874 was due 
largely to their agitation. But they looked beyond trades- 
unions to the ultimate establishment of co-operative produc- 
tion. As it is often, though erroneously, supposed that the 
working classes of America have not given much attention to 
co-operation, a quotation from the report of the Knights of 
St. Crispin on co-operation in 187 1, may well be inserted at 
this place ; especially as it is merely typical. It is as follows : 
" We regard the trades-unions simply as an agent, a means 
to an end, that should be to secure to the laborer a just 
reward for his toil ; and, in so far as they afford the means 
of resistance to encroaching capital and in their acknowl- 
edged educational influence over the members, they are 
indispensable, but we cannot help thinking if they stop with 
simply preserving their numerical strength, they are in the 
long run apt to fail and become extinct ; so, then, your com- 
mittee while urging the use of every honorable means to 
preserve the integrity of the order, and extend its influence 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 69 

and usefulness, would just as earnestly urge our brothers to 
use their utmost endeavors to build up in the order a system 
of co-operation in both trade and manufactures ; for in so 
doing they would not only improve their own condition, but 
lift the order into a position of the highest respectability 
and influence." 

The last meeting of the International Grand Lodge was 
held in 1873; an d though a partially successful effort was 
made to revive the order in 1876, and it received sufficient 
strength to take part in the strikes of 1877 an d ^78, it 
never again regained a firm foothold. The causes of the 
decay of the order were internal dissensions, and attacks 
from employers, who were placed in a trying position by the 
crisis of 1873, and the " hard times " in the following years ; 
for there were always employers who did not accept the scale 
of prices offered by the Crispins, and these soon began to 
place goods on the market at lower figures than was possi- 
ble for their competitors working in harmony with the Knights. 
One source of great weakness which more than anything else 
rendered it impossible for them to force all employers to 
recognize them, was due to the wonderful division of labor 
in the boot and shoe industry, in which there are sixty-four 
distinct branches. 1 Most of the operations of the em- 
ployees, it is manifest, must be simple in the extreme, and 
on this account it was easy to supply the place of strikers 
from the ranks of unskilled labor. 

In 1866 the delegates of the various labor organizations 
met in Baltimore, and formed what was called the National 
Labor Union, which rapidly attained great strength, number- 
ing, it is said, six hundred and forty thousand members in 
1868. But its growth proved to be but of a mushroom 
character, for jt expired in a few years of the disease known 

1 See Farnam, I.e., p. 20. 



70 THE LABOR MOVEMENT, 

as politics. Fatal malady ! how often has it destroyed bud- 
ding but promising life ! However, the National Labor 
Union accomplished two things : it gave an impulse to the 
agitation for an eight-hour day, which is still felt ; and it 
issued a demand for a national bureau of labor statistics, 
which was granted after a constant reiteration of the demand 
during the succeeding twenty years. Earlier apparent suc- 
cess attended the efforts of the National Labor Union to 
establish an eight-hour day for the employees of government. 
On the 24th of June, 1869, a bill for an eight-hour day was 
introduced into Congress by General Banks, whose wife, 
by the way, was once a factory girl in Lowell. This passed 
the House and Senate, promptly received the signature of 
the President of the United States, General Grant, and was 
enforced in the Navy Yard at Charlestown, Mass., July 6 
of the same year. But the politicians, who at the time of 
elections are so fond of the laborers, usually care little for 
the enforcement of laws in behalf of labor, and in violation 
of the spirit of the law, the employees of the United States 
were notified that our wealthy and powerful government 
would reduce wages one-fifth ; but that those who so desired 
could work ten hours at the old rates. The workingmen 
showed their indignation in such manner as apparently to 
make the politicians think of votes at future elections, or to 
fear trouble, and the order was reversed by the President. 
But success was again illusory. The eight-hour law is still 
on our statute books, and a like law exists in several States, 
but it is a dead letter. 1 Can any one doubt if it were a law 

1 It should be distinctly understood that all these eight-hour laws 
relate chiefly to public employees; that is, to the civil servants of fed- 
eral government, of State, or of municipality. They are not mandatory 
for private employers of labor, though some of the State laws declare 
that eight hours shall be a day's labor when nothing to the contrary is 
stipulated. 






LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 71 

in favor of great railway corporations or banking institutions, 
it would be enforced ? Yet the political newspapers, who in 
discussions of free trade and protection are often so solici- 
tous about the welfare of the laborer, and are so sensitively 
alive to his true interests that one would imagine that their 
editors scarcely thought even of the existence of the remain- 
ing classes of society, — these newspapers preserve a most 
singular silence on the subject of our eight-hour laws. But 
the agitation still goes on, and the laborers propose to settle 
the matter sooner or later, without help of government, by 
a general refusal to work longer than eight hours. 

An effort was made to introduce the eight-hour day by 
strikes in 1872 and 1873, when eight-hour leagues were 
formed in some of the States and cities ; but only a small 
measure of success attended this endeavor. A still greater 
effort to introduce the eight-hour day was made on the 1st of 
May, 1886; but the most powerful labor organization, the 
Knights of Labor, did not heartily indorse the movement, 
as their chief, Mr. Powderly, and others did not think the 
time ripe for it. Nevertheless, several hundred thousand 
men struck ; but they again failed to accomplish their end, 
although the failure in this case, as before, was not complete. 
Many thousand laborers have attained an eight-hour day, 
and a still larger number have received a reduction from ten 
hours. Nine hours is common in the building trades, and 
in some cases a workday of nine hours five days in the 
week, and eight hours on Saturday, has been secured. 1 

1 Bradstreefs estimated the number of strikers for shorter hours at 
200,000, of whom 50,000 were granted their demands, while 150,000 
secured shorter hours, generally with full pay, without a strike. But 
on June 12, the same paper estimated that one-third of these had lost 
what had been conceded to them, and predicted that a still larger 
number would lose the advantage gained. There can be no doubt of 



72 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

While the eight-hour movement has received a set-back 
for the present, it is certain to come into prominence again, 
and there is reason to think that it will be ultimately suc- 
cessful. 1 The most intelligent men among the laboring 
classes seem to be unanimously in favor of it, and some of 
the best thinkers on social topics, outside of the laboring 
classes, favor the establishment of an eight-hour day. 

The Muses are frequently invoked by those who believe 
in eight hours as the normal working-day, and the laborers 
are inspired by song. The following poem, written some 
time ago, is one of the many on this 7 subject, and may be 
taken as a specimen of the poetry which appears in the labor 
press. 2 

EIGHT HOURS. 

BY J. G. BLANCHARD. 

We mean to make things over; we're tired of toil for nought 
But bare enough to live on ; never an hour for thought. 

this; but the 200,000 included only those who secured a reduction of 
hours by the movement of May 1, and not those, perhaps as many, 
who were already working less than ten hours a day, as, for example, 
the window-glass workers. 

1 Manufacturers express themselves as well pleased with the eight- 
hour day in Australia, and it seems to give general satisfaction. Its 
establishment is annually celebrated, and the most influential people on 
the island participate in the festivities. While this in itself is not suffi- 
cient to prove the desirability of the eight-hour day in the United States, 
the Australian experiment deserves attention. The question is too large 
for exhaustive treatment in this place, and I will only call attention to 
this fact : investigations show that laborers as a rule make a good use 
of the leisure afforded by shorter hours. At first, they are inclined to 
spend the time foolishly, or worse than foolishly, but soon this changes. 
The reports of English parliamentary commissions are instructive on 
this topic. 

2 This quotation is taken from Die Amerikanischen Arbeiterver* 
haltnisse> by Dr. von Studnitz. 






LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 73 

We want to feel the sunshine, we want to smell the flowers; 

We're sure that God has willed it, and we mean to have eight hours. 

We're summoning our forces from the shipyard, shop, and mill. 

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will. 

The beasts that graze the hillside, the birds that wander free 

In the life that God has meted, have a better lot than we. 

Oh ! hands and hearts are weary, and homes are heavy with dole; 

If life's to be filled with drudgery, what need of a human soul ! 

Shout, shout the lusty rally from shipyard, shop, and mill. 

The very stones would cry out if labor's tongue were still ! 

The voice of God within us is calling us to stand 

Erect, as is becoming the work of His right hand. 

Should he to whom the Maker His glorious image gave, 

Cower, the meanest of His creatures, a bread-and-butter slave ! 

Let the shout ring down the valleys, and echo from every hill, 

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we wilL 

The Patrons of Husbandry, or Grangers, as they are more 
usually called, must receive notice in any account of the 
labor movement in America, even if it be merely a 
sketch like the present work. This order, founded in 1866, 
although composed of independent farmers and not of em- 
ployees, has not been without influence on labor movements 
in the United States, and one of its chief officers writes me 
that the Patrons of Industry desire their association to be 
called a labor organization. The Patrons of Husbandry 
grew rapidly during the first decade of their existence, and 
in November, 1875, tnen * membership was reported at 
763,263 ; but a decline began soon after this which con- 
tinued until two or three years ago, since which time there 
has been a revival of interest and an increase of strength in 
the Grange. It is a good sign that a connection has recently 
been formed in several States between the Patrons of Hus- 
bandry and the Knights of Labor, chiefly urban mechanics 
and laborers ; for common action between city and country 
cannot fail to furnish both a healthy stimulus and a sound 



74 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

conservatism to the entire labor movement. On this same 
account it is to be greeted as a welcome omen that the 
Farmers' Alliance of Illinois has become " part and parcel " 
of the Knights of Labor, and that plans for common action 
between the Knights and the farmers of Texas have been 
formed, while rural assemblies of the Knights of Labor are 
benr -ganized in Ohio and Indiana. 

The general aims of the Grangers are well set forth in 
their "Declaration of Purposes,' ' from which the following 
quotation is an extract : — 

" We shall endeavor to advance our cause by laboring to 
accomplishing the following objects : To develop a better 
and higher manhood and womanhood among ourselves. 
To enhance the comforts and attractions of our homes, and 
strengthen our attachments to our pursuits. To foster 
mutual understanding and co-operation. ... To discounte- 
nance the credit system, the mortgage system, the fashion 
system, and every other system tending to prodigality and 
bankruptcy. 

" We propose meeting together, talking together, working 
together, buying together, selling together, and in general 
acting together for our mutual protection and advancement, 
as occasion may require. We shall avoid litigation as much 
as possible by arbitration in the Grange. . . . 

" We are not enemies to capital, but we oppose the tyranny 
of monopolies. We long to see the antagonism between 
labor and capital removed by common consent and by an 
enlightened statesmanship worthy of the nineteenth century. 
It shall be an abiding principle with us to relieve any of our 
oppressed and suffering brotherhood by any means at our 
command. 

" Last, but not least, we proclaim it among our purposes to 
inculcate a proper appreciation of the abilities and sphere of 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 75 

woman, as is indicated by admitting her to membership 
and position in our order.' ' 

The local units called Granges are united in State Granges, 
and over the State Granges is the highest authority among 
the Patrons of Husbandry, the National Grange. The 
Grangers were perhaps the first power in this country to 
curb our railways, and in this way they have accomjL '\ed 
much good, though part of the legislation which they favored 
and actually secured, particularly in the West and Northwest, 
was unfortunately based on wrong principles, and could not 
be permanent. 

The achievements of the Patrons in co-operation, and the 
educational value of their order, will receive attention in later 
chapters of this book. 

Uriah S. Stevens, a tailor of Philadelphia, called together 
eight friends on Thanksgiving Day, in 1869, and organized a 
society which in nineteen years has grown to be the most 
powerful and the most remarkable labor organization of 
modern times. Although the origin of the Knights of 
Labor, for to this society reference is made, was thus hum- 
ble, it was established on truly scientific principles, which 
involved either an intuitive perception of the nature of indus- 
trial progress, or a wonderful acquaintance with the laws 
of economic society. It has thus happened that a new 
phase of the labor movement has been inaugurated on 
American soil and the general course of its future develop- 
ment indicated. 

The older trades-unions were perhaps the only form of 
organization which could be usefully employed in an earlier 
period ; but, although still useful, they are not large enough 
to carry forward the labor movement of to-day, and the 
reason for this becomes obvious with a little reflection on the 
nature of modern production. The invention of new ma- 

l 



76 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

chinery and the improvement in technical processes have 
weakened the position of unions composed exclusively of 
mechanics of a single trade. The division of labor, which 
is one of the most marked features of industrial progress, 
renders each particular step in manufacture comparatively 
simple, and the relative number of workingmen requiring 
special skill diminishes. It becomes easy to fill places of 
union men who will not accept conditions satisfactory to 
their employers from the ranks of unskilled labor. This, as 
has already been remarked, was one cause of the fall of the 
Knights of St. Crispin. But this is not all ; changes in manu- 
factures are rendering entire classes of skilled mechanics quite 
useless, and these fall into the class of unskilled labor, which 
is thus constantly filled to repletion. Take the case of printers ; 
men are now endeavoring to invent a type-setting machine, 
which will place this skill among other useless acquirements. 
Should they succeed, it is not easy to see of what use the 
International Typographical Union could be to its members, 
unless it should indeed change its character, enlarge its 
scope, and enter into closer connection with other labor 
organizations. Now the order of the Knights of Labor was 
founded with a perception of these facts, and those who 
originated it, and have given to it its animus, have sought to 
organize a society which should embrace all branches of 
skilled and unskilled labor, for mutual protection, for the 
promotion of industrial and social education among the 
masses, and for the attainment of beneficent public and pri- 
vate reforms. There is provided room within the order for 
separate trades-unions, with their own rules and regulations, 
united by a federal tie, as well as for those outside of any 
unions. 

Long before the Knights of Labor became known to the 
world, John Stuart Mill, with that marvellous insight into 






LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 77 

economic and social relations which at times characterized 
him, described one of the fundamental principles of the 
Knights of Labor as that which should characterize future 
labor organizations. " If," said he, " no improvement were 
to be hoped for in the general circumstances of the working 
classes, the success of a portion of them, however small, in 
keeping their wages, by combination, above the market-rate, 
would be wholly a matter of satisfaction. But when the 
elevation of the character and condition of the entire body 
has at last become a thing not beyond the reach of rational 
effort, it is time that the better-paid classes of skilled artisans 
should seek their own advantage in common with, and not 
by exclusion of, their fellow-laborers. While they continue 
to fix their hopes on hedging themselves in against competi- 
tion, and protecting their own wages by shutting out others 
from access to their employment, nothing better can be 
expected from them than total absence of any large and 
generous aims. . . . Success, even if attainable in raising up 
a protected class of working people, would now be a hin- 
drance instead of a help to the emancipation of the working 
classes at large." 

The reason for this judgment is, that improvements in 
means of production have now rendered the elevation of the 
entire body an object of rational effort. Consequently, did 
we succeed in the attempt to elevate skilled artisans and 
mechanics, 2Jad solve the labor question in so far as they are 
concerned, there would remain still a great mass at the 
bottom of society with pressing and unsatisfied needs. A 
" Fifth Estate " would arise and clamor for emancipation. 
The problem of production is well on the way to solution. 
What now agitates the public is the problem of distribution, 
and the Knights of Labor propose to assist in its solution for 
the entire race. They reason correctly that if they can 



1 






78 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

elevate the lowest social stratum, they will raise all other 
strata. It is thus that they put themselves in line with the 
precepts of Christianity. The strong help to bear the in- 
firmities of the weak, and no grander conception of human 
brotherhood than that which they profess, characterizes any 
movement of our times. 1 

The local societies are called local assemblies, generally 
indicated by the letters L. A., and these may be composed 
entirely of men of one trade, or of men of various pursuits. 
In the latter case it is called mixed. Three-fourths of the 
members of new " locals " must be wage-workers ; but men 
of all classes are admitted, with the exception of bankers, 
stock-brokers, professional gamblers, lawyers, and those who 
in any way derive their living from the manufacture or sale 
of intoxicating liquors. Above the local assemblies are the 
district assemblies, which are sometimes geographical and 
sometimes trade distinctions. Richmond and Manchester, 
Virginia, constitute one district. Locals and districts are 
distinguished by numbers. "District Assembly" 41, for 
example, includes the local assemblies of Baltimore and 
vicinity, while " Local Assembly " 300 is composed of glass- 

1 Mr. Powderly explains well the present situation in these words, 
taken from the New York Sun of March 29, 1886: "With the intro- 
duction of labor-saving machinery the trade (of machinists and black- 
smiths) was all cut up, so that a man who had served an apprenticeship 
of five years might be brought in competition with a machine run 
by a boy, and the boy would do the most and the best. I saw that 
labor-saving machinery was bringing the machinist down to the level 
of a day laborer, and soon they would be on a level. My aim was to 
dignify the laborer." In the same article he mentions the fact that his 
greatest difficulty in inducing the machinists and blacksmiths to join 
the Knights of Labor lay in the contempt with which they looked 
upon other workers. This is characteristic of the narrow spirit which 
formerly separated the various trades. 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 79 

workers. Some of the locals are not included in any district, 
but are directly subordinate to the highest authority in the 
order, the " General Assembly,' ' a delegate body or congress 
representing the entire order. This is the case with L. A. 
300, which is larger than some district assemblies ; about 
twice as large, for example, as D. A. 59, which embraces 
locals in Chicago and vicinity. 1 Some of the assemblies 
have adopted special names, as the " Henry George Assem- 
bly" ; while the locals composed exclusively of women occa- 
sionally prefer some more poetical or mysterious designation; 
one in Baltimore, for example, bears the name, " The Un- 
known " ; while another, in Texas, is called " The Guid- 
ing Star Assembly." 

The " Noble Order of the Knights of Labor " was at first 
an organization the very existence of which was kept a 
secret. Its name was never mentioned, but it was indicated 
by five stars, thus *****, and for several years it grew rapidly 
in this profound secrecy. Finally, however, rumors became 
rife about "The Five Stars," as it was called, and Philadel- 
phians noticed with trepidation that a few cabalistic chalk- 
marks in front of " Independence Hall " could bring several 
thousand men together. Alarm spread, newspapers circu- 
lated absurd fictions in regard to its designs, in which accu- 
sations of communism and incendiarism were prominent, 
and Catholic and Protestant clergymen hastened to de- 
nounce the unknown monster. Finally it was decided to 
abandon the policy of extreme secrecy 2 which had character- 
ized the infancy of the order, and it came before the world 
with a statement of principles and repudiated all con- 

1 This statement is based on the statistics in the Report of the Gen- 
eral Secretary at the last General Assembly, which was held at Hamil- 
ton, Ontario, October, 1885. 

2 A special meeting was held to consider this matter in June, 1878, 



80 



THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 



nection with violent and revolutionary associations. The 
pledge 1 binding members not to divulge the affairs of the 
Knights was declared not binding with reference to the con- 
fessional, and thus the hostility of the Roman Catholic clergy 
was generally overcome, and many priests of this church have 
since then become warm friends of the order, although it has 
met with denunciation on the part of one or two of its higher 
authorities, particularly in Canada. The first general assem- 
bly was held in Reading, Pa., in 1878, when its membership 
is said to have amounted to eighty/thousand. A meeting of 
the General Assembly has been held annually since then, 
and of late years each annual report shows growth. In 1883 
the number of members in round figures was 52,000; in 
1884, 71,000 ; 1885, 111,000. The reports are dated July 1 



in the city of Philadelphia. The call, signed by the founder, Uriah S. 
Stevens, then Grand Master Workman, was headed : — 

"N.andH.O. 

OF THE 

#M. M. M. M, 

■Tp ■Tf yp yr 

Of North America. 

peace and prosperity to the faithful! 

To the Fraternity wherever found, Greeting: — 

SPECIAL CALL." 

The reason for this special call is stated to be " on account of what 
is believed by many of our most influential members to be an 
emergency of vast and vital importance to the stability, usefulness, and 
influence of our order." The business to come before the meeting, as 
further stated, " is to consider the expediency of making the name of 
the Order public for the purpose of defending it from the fierce assaults 
and defamation made upon it by press, clergy, and corporate capital, 
and to take such further action as shall effectually meet the grave 

EMERGENCY." 

1 It is now simply one's word of honor. 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 81 

in each case. The growth during the past year has been 
entirely without precedent ; and though no one knows the 
present membership, 1 estimates range from three to five 
hundred thousand. Occasionally one hears rumors of one 
million, a million and a half, and even two million members ; 
but there appears to be no ground whatever for. such esti- 
mates. It is, however, doubtless true that over one million 
persons have at one time or another been members of the 
order, possibly even two millions, and it is not at all improb- 
able that a million Americans sympathize with its general 
aims and endeavor to act in harmony with its movements. 
Under pressure of hard times members will drop out of work- 
ingmen's societies, and it is difficult to keep alive an interest 
in an organization among the less intelligent laborers, who are 
apt to join to accomplish some temporary purpose, or out of 
love of novelty. But these same men who have dropped 
out will, under favorable circumstances, again pour into the 
organizations. The consequence is, that the number of 
members actually on the rolls of labor organizations is apt to 
give but an imperfect idea of their strength. It must further 
be remembered, that as the better workmen are, as a rule, 
members of trades-unions and the other associations, these 
various societies often lead even those who have always been 
non-union men. The growth of the Knights of Labor during 
the past two years has been more remarkable in the South 
and East of the United States than elsewhere. The report 
for July, 1884, shows sixty- four members in Richmond ; now 
one hears rumors, apparently well founded, of six and seven 
thousand, even of eight thousand, and it is certain that the 
Knights were able to elect a municipal ticket in the spring 
of 1886 by a large majority. They swept the city, as the 

1 This was written in July, 1886, and the annual reports are not pub- 
lished until later in the year. 



82 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

saying is. Four years ago there was not a local assembly 
south of Ealtimore; now local assemblies are springing 
up in all parts of the South, which some think is the 
most favorable soil for the order, as it is not occupied 
to any great extent by trades-unions, and thus offers a 
free field. There were four local assemblies in Massa- 
chusetts in 1882; in October, 1885, 125. Of the 261 
"locals" organized in December, 1885, 30 were in Massa- 
chusetts. There were seven locals in the single city of 
Haverhill in 1885, and of these one, numbering nearly eight 
hundred, was composed exclusively of women, and another 
consisted of French Canadians. Among the Knights in 
this place are eight or ten shoe-manufacturers, and several 
men of prominence in the town. 

/Two facts which must be mentioned here are among 
the peculiarities of the present phase of the labor move- 
ment. The first is the position taken with reference to 
women on the one hand, on the other the attitude of women 
towards the Knights of Labor. It is clearly recognized that 
women have been, and are still, more oppressed than men, 
and the truth has been fully perceived that it is impossible 
to better the condition of the masses permanently unless the 
lot of workingwomen is ameliorated. As a consequence, 
the Knights are everywhere endeavoring to help women to 
secure higher wages and more favorable conditions of service. 
This effort has been manifested in a thousand different ways. 
When girls have struck on account of indecent treatment in 
factories, they have found the Knights their most ardent 
champions, and large contributions have been made by them 
and other organized workingmen to support their sisters. 
Another manifestation of a somewhat different character, and 
also typical, was recently observed when an American, who 
had abused his wife, was expelled from the order and word 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 83 

was sent to Canada, whither he had emigrated, to have 
nothing to do with the unworthy scoundrel. A third illus- 
tration of this praiseworthy endeavor is seen in the co 
operative shirt factory in Baltimore, lately started by the 
workingmen of that city to help the poor sewing women. 
A new regard for women is thus being cultivated among the 
masses, and the fall significance of this can only be appre- 
ciated by him who takes large views of the movements of 
the day, for the full fruition of seed now sown will not be 
perceived for many years to come. The workingwomen of 
the country are, as would naturally be expected, learning to 
value the "noble order" highly, and many of them are 
becoming members. Women are among the most ardent, 
self-sacrificing supporters of this labor movement. 

The second fact to which attention must be directed is 
the membership among the negroes in the South, who are 
so much inclined to societies of various kinds that one can 
scarcely find a colored person, male or female, who does 
not belong to at least one. They are now everywhere join- 
ing the Knights of Labor, who do not discriminate against 
them, and are considered among their most faithful mem- 
bers. The following item in the news sent from Richmond 
to the Associated Labor Press in April, 1885, is only one of 
many indications of the attitude of the colored people which 
might be cited : " The negroes are with us heart and soul, 
and have organized seven assemblies in this city and one 
in Manchester with a large membership." 

It is said that the largest accessions have come of late 
from the farmers, and the following States are reported as 
those in which farmers have either joined the Knights in 
large numbers, or have entered into friendly relations with 
them through their own organizations : Virginia, Texas, 
Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. One begins to 



84 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

hear of the Knights of Labor in England and Belgium, and 
if the order survives internal dissensions, 1 it will soon attain 
a position of influence in Europe. The order can scarcely 
be called secret now, as it conceals none of its plans. It is 
found useful to exclude non-members from its meetings for 
several obvious reasons. One is the bitter hostility of certain 
employers who have " victimized " members of the organi- 
zation. It was largely on this account that its profound 
secrecy was first maintained; for the determination seems 
to have been early reached to pursue^ more open course as 
soon as it could protect its members. For the same reason 
it is deemed desirable in a few places to pursue the early 
policy, and not to mention the existence of assemblies 
in these localities. Another reason for closing meetings to 
the public is, the greater freedom in debate and discussion. 
The members are for the most part men whose educational 
advantages have been slight, and in feeling about for 
theoretical truth, or a correct course of action, they very 
properly do not desire to incur the ridicule of the press, 
which could do little good, and would certainly do much 
harm. 

| One of the best achievements of the Knights of Labor is 
the good opinion they have won of many intelligent employ- 
ers who really wish their laborers well. A forcible example 
of this was exhibited in Baltimore not long since. The 
employees of one of the most prominent manufacturers in 
the city joined the order on his advice to them to do so, 
and his testimony in a meeting of the Board of Trade, 
together with arguments of other members, sufficed to 
induce that body to pass resolutions which were favorable to 

1 Those who imagine attacks from without can destroy it are greatly 
mistaken. At the present juncture nothing could be so useful to the 
order of the Knights of Labor as a little persecution. 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 85 

labor organizations, and highly creditable to the broad intel- 
ligence and generous feeling of its members. 

The change of feelings in regard to the Knights of Labor 
is well brought out in the following quotation from the New 
York Sun : — 

" Manufacturers who a few years ago would have had 
nothing to do with the Executive Board, 1 and would have 
resented any interference in their affairs by it, now send for 
it to arbitrate between their help and themselves. For 
instance, in a potters' strike, in 1882, the employers in 
Trenton refused to resume work until their men quitted the 
Knights of Labor. This year, in the face of another diffi- 
culty between their men and themselves, they agreed to 
submit their difficulty to the Executive Board. The men 
were out on strike, and the Board declined to do anything 
until the men were taken back at the old prices. In three 
days they submitted a new scale to the employees and 
strikers, and, as Secretary Turner says, ' succeeded in pleas- 
ing both sides for the first time in our history.' The Pot- 
ters' Association passed a vote of thanks to the Board." 

" The capitalists used to think we were demons, or men 
with horns on our foreheads," said Mr. Turner ; " but they 
find, instead, a little party of plain men who have only one 
aim — that of making peace and bringing about justice." 

The Preamble of the Knights of Labor contains their 
declaration of purposes, and reads as follows : — 

Preamble of the Knights of Labor. 

The alarming development and aggressiveness of great capital- 
ists and corporations, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the 
pauperization and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses. 

1 Officers of the General Assembly, whose functions are indicated 
by their name. 



86 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full blessings of life, 
that a check be placed upon unjust accumulation and the power 
for evil of aggregated wealth. 

This much-desired object can be accomplished only by the 
united efforts of those who obey the divine injunction, " In the 
sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread." 

Therefore we have formed the Order of Knights of Labor, for 
the purpose of organizing and directing the power of the indus- 
trial masses, not as a political party, for it is more : in it are 
crystalized sentiments and measures for the benefit of the whole 
people; but it should be borne in mind, when exercising the 
right of suffrage, that most of the objects herein set forth can 
only be obtained through legislation, and that it is the duty of 
all to assist in nominating and supporting with their votes only 
such candidates as will pledge their support to these measures, 
regardless of party. But no one shall, however, be compelled 
to vote with the majority, and calling upon all who believe in 
securing " the greatest good to the greatest number" to join and 
assist us, we declare to the world that our aims are : — 

I. To make industrial and moral worth, not wealth, the true 
standard of individual and national greatness. 

II. To secure for the workers the full enjoyment of the wealth 
they create; sufficient leisure in which to develop their intel- 
lectual, moral, and social faculties ; all of the benefits, recreation, 
and pleasure of association ; in a word, to enable them to share 
in the gains and honors of advancing civilization. 

In order to secure these results, we demand at the hands of 
the State : — 

III. The establishment of Bureaus of Labor Statistics, that 
we may arrive at a correct knowledge of the educational, moral, 
and financial condition of the laboring masses. 

IV. That the public lands, the heritage of the people, be 
reserved for actual settlers ; not another acre for railroads or 
speculators ; and that all lands now held for speculative purposes 
be taxed to their full value. 

V. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon 
capital and labor, and the removal of unjust technicalities, delays, 
and discriminations in the administration of justice. 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 87 

VI. The adoption of measures providing for the health and 
safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, and building 
industries, and for indemnification to those engaged therein for 
injuries received through lack of necessary safeguards. 

VII. The recognition, by incorporation, of trades-unions, 
orders, and such other associations as may be organized by the 
working masses to improve their condition and protect their 
rights. 

VIII. The enactment of laws to compel corporations to pay 
their employees weekly, in lawful money, for the labor of the 
preceding week, and giving mechanics and laborers a first lien 
upon the product of their labor to the extent of their full 
wages. 

IX. The abolition of the contract system on national, State, 
and municipal works. 

X. The enactment of laws providing for arbitration between 
employers and employed, and to enforce the decision of the 
arbitrators. 

XI. The prohibition bylaw of the employment of 'children 
under fifteen years of age in workshops, mines, and factories. 

XII. To prohibit the hiring out of convict labor. 

XIII. That a graduated income tax be levied. 
And we demand at the hands of Congress : — 

XIV. The establishment of a national monetary system, in 
which a circulating medium in necessary quantity shall issue 
direct to the people, without the intervention of banks ; that all 
the national issue shall be full legal tender in payment of all 
debts, public and private; and that the government shall not 
guarantee or recognize any private banks, or create any banking 
corporations. 

XV. That interest-bearing bonds, bills of credit, or notes, 
shall never be issued by the government ; but that, when need 
arises, the emergency shall be met by issue of legal tender, non- 
interest-bearing money. 

XVI. That the importation of foreign labor under contract be 
prohibited. 

XVII. That, in connection with the post-office, the govern- 



88 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

merit shall organize financial exchanges, safe deposits, and facil- 
ities for deposit of the savings of the people in small sums. 

XVIII. That the government shall obtain possession, by pur- 
chase, under the right of eminent domain, of all telegraphs, tele- 
phones, and railroads ; and that hereafter no charter or license 
be issued to any corporation for construction or operation of any 
means of transporting intelligence, passengers, or freight. 

And while making the foregoing demands upon the State and 
national government, we will endeavor to associate our own 
labors : — 

XIX. To establish co-operative institutions such as will tend 
to supercede the wage system, by the introduction of a co-opera- 
tive industrial system. 

XX. To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work. 

XXI. To shorten the hours of labor by a general refusal to 
work for more than eight hours. 

XXII. To persuade employers to arbitrate all differences 
which may arise between them and their employees, in order that 
the bonds of sympathy between them may be strengthened, and 
that strikes may be rendered unnecessary. 

This sketch of labor organizations cannot be complete 
without a word about "The Federation of Organized Trades 
and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada/' and 
about our Central Labor Unions, or Trades Assemblies, or 
Federations of Labor, as they are variously called. 

The first of these central labor unions has been already 
mentioned as having existed in New York in 1833, under 
the name of the General Trades Union of the City of New 
York. Another was formed in Cincinnati in 1864. Now 
they exist in New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, New Haven, 
Boston, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Baltimore, Wash- 
ington, and probably in every one of the chief cities of the 
United States. They are delegate bodies, to which each 
local union sends representatives, so that the laborers of a 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 89 

vicinity may act solidly together. Recently a movement has 
been set on foot to call a convention of representatives of all 
central labor unions, to solidify still further the interests 
of labor in all great American cities, and to secure harmo- 
nious action for common ends. 

The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, 
organized in Pittsburg in 1881, is for the labor organizations 
of the United States and Canada what the central labor 
unions are to the local organizations in the cities, and is 
founded on the model of the Trades Union Congress of 
England. It aims to promote the common interest of all 
trades-unions and labor organizations, and to watch the 
course of legislation in order to promote that which is con- 
sidered beneficial, and to repress that which is regarded as 
injurious. Its last annual meeting was held in Washington 
in December, 1885, when it claimed to represent two hun- 
dred and eighty thousand workingmen. 

What is the total number of organized laborers at the 
present time in the United States? This is something 
which no human being knows or can know with any statis- 
tics at command. There are, however, data which enable 
one to form a rational opinion \ and although space will not 
permit an enumeration of such facts as are known, I do not 
hesitate to say that I consider a million a conservative esti- 
mate \ while it is quite possible that the number may be far 
longer. It is not improbable that one-fourth of our indus- 
trial wage-workers belong to some kind of organization. 1 

1 My estimate is far more conservative than that of others. Mr. 
Henry Semler, of San Francisco, is quoted as saying that in his 
opinion ninety-nine out of every hundred Americans belonged to some 
kind of an organization, and that ninety-five out of a hundred belonged 
to a mutual aid society of one description or another. I regard this 
as true only of our colored population, 



90 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Nearly all the laborers engaged in certain branches of pro- 
duction in industrial centres are organized/ and in other 
employments a very considerable majority. It is said, for 
example, that four-fifths of the locomotive engineers, and an 
equal proportion of locomotive firemen, belong to their 
respective unions. The president of the Lake Seamen's 
Union testified before the Blair Committee on Labor three 
years since, that his organization embraced about seventy- 
five per cent "of the persons engaged as sailors on the 
lakes." 

A reaction appears to have set in, 1 and it is probable that 
for some time to come the power of organized labor will 
decrease ; but a change will again come, and the unions 
and various associations will once more report an increasing 
membership. The progress of the labor movement may be 
compared to the incoming tide. Each wave advances a 
little further than the previous one ; and he is the merest 
tyro in social science, and an ignoramus in the history of his 
country, who imagines that a permanent decline has over- 
taken organized labor, 2 whatever his talents or acquisitions 
may be in other respects. It is to be noticed that before 
this reaction set in, the organization of labor progressed with 
such gigantic strides that it was almost impossible to keep 
pace with it. The gain of the Knights of Labor, over 
seventy-five per cent from 1884 to 1885, was characteristic 
of the growth of the entire labor movement. 

Another measure of growth is the progress of the press, 

1 Written in July, 1886. 

2 A writer for one of the leading journals in the country 
headed an editorial in 1877, "The Overthrow of Trades Unionism." 
It was directed specially against the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi- 
neers and its chief, Mr. Arthur. That brotherhood is now stronger 
than ever before, and Mr. Arthur stands high in public opinion in 1 886. 



LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 91 

which represents a given cause. A German student who 
wrote a book on American labor in 1876, remarked it as a 
characteristic of the movement in this country that the labor 
press was small and insignificant. To-day there may be five 
hundred labor newspapers in the United States, and among 
them are nine or ten dailies. It is doubtful if there was a 
single labor paper in the South three years ago, unless possi- 
bly in New Orleans. In 1885 there were three in Rich- 
mond, a city of less than one hundred thousand inhabitants. 
The number of the labor papers is increasing every week. 
Some of them are edited with considerable ability; many 
are enlarging their size, using better type than hitherto, and 
are giving other signs of a secure footing. 1 In short, the evi- 
dences of astounding rapidity in the progress of the organi- 
zation of labor are so overwhelming that they appear on 
every hand, and fairly force themselves upon us. It is 
further to be noticed, that these organizations have taken 
deeper root than ever before ; one striking proof of which 
is that they have continued to grow r in power during the last 
few years of stagnation in business, while the hard years 
following the panic of 1873 so nearly ruined them that 
many drew the over-hasty conclusion that they were alto- 
gether devoid of strong vitality. 

Now comes the question, — the momentous question, — 
What does all this mean? What is its significance? An 
attempt will be made to give a satisfactory reply in the fol- 
lowing chapters. 

1 Written before the reaction. 



CHAPTER IV. 1 

THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 

TRADES-UNIONS and other associations of laborers 
are designed to protect and advance the interest of 
the great mass of the working clashes. They are intended 
primarily for the average man, and not for those with extra- 
ordinary economic capacities. The latter class may occa- 
sionally find them useful, but usually men possessed of 
economic gifts of a higher order wish no help from labor 
organizations. They desire a free course, and ask to be let 
alone. There can be no more useful person in the com- 
munity than the talented man, provided he is at the same 
time a man obedient to the dictates of practical ethics ; and 
it is desirable that his freedom of movement should not be 
restrained, so long as he does not intrench upon the liberties 
of his neighbor, or does not otherwise injure his fellow-men. 
It will at times happen that the cheapest man in a town is 
the " captain of industry," whose unusual abilities yield him 
an annual income of twenty, thirty, or forty thousand dollars 
per annum ; and by saying that he is the cheapest man in 
the town, I mean that he renders greater service to the 
community for every dollar received than any one else. 

1 Credit for much that is in this chapter must be given to Professor 
Bruntano, whose treatment of this subject in his " Gewerbliche Arbei- 
terfrage " is the best that I have seen. This monograph is published 
in the first volume of Schonberg's " Handbuch der politischen Oekon- 
omie." Passages enclosed in quotation marks are from Professor 
Brentano where nothing to the contrary is stated. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 93 

Though it is often necessary to put a check on greed, and 
to restrain the activity of the unscrupulous, the true policy 
for all social classes, and therefore for society as a whole, is 
to encourage the development of talent. 

But one of the elementary truths which we in this country 
specially need to grasp is that the average man is not a 
peculiarly gifted man. What do we mean by able, talented, 
and such expressions? By them we call attention to the 
fact that a man is superior to the vast majority. The 
terms are relative, and as ordinarily used they can no more 
apply to all men than two and two can make five. This is 
simple ; but nothing is more fraught with weighty conse- 
quences, and nothing is oftener overlooked in discussions 
of social problems. How common is the saying, "There is 
always plenty of room on the top shelf, ,, or " in the upper 
story.'* What of it? All men can no more get there than 
every tree in the forest can be taller than all the other trees. 
Yet people talk as if this were possible. The extreme of this 
absurdity is seen in the traditional elderly gentleman who 
tells all the boys in the village school that they may one day 
become President of the United States. Though doubtless 
spoken in ignorance, it is, in the nature of things, a false- 
hood. Let us, then, begin any treatment of the labor ques- 
tion, or any other social problem, with a frank recognition 
of the fact that we have to deal with the ninety-nine out of 
a hundred who by no human possibility can ascend to the 
" upper story." One hundred men may struggle never so 
hard ; but if they are to have only one leader, only one can 
rise to that position of eminence. You may urge them on 
and render the struggle severer, but the ultimate result is 
the same. Take the case of independent producers. The 
relative number of those who belong to that class has been 
steadily diminishing for years, as production on a large scale 



94 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

has taken the place of the small shop. It lies, then, in the 
nature of things, that under our present industrial system the 
relative portion of wage-receivers in manufactories must in- 
crease. It is not the fault of the laborer ; it is not the fault 
of their employers. When one begins to discuss the labor 
question, one often hears the remark, " The majority of rich 
manufacturers began themselves as poor boys. They were 
once employees." The statement itself will not bear such 
close scrutiny as some might think, for it is not so true of an 
old country as of a new ; not so trup of the manufacturers 
of forty years of age as of those of seventy. But if we 
accept the statement, what of it? What bearing has that 
on the condition of those who remain journeymen all their 
lives? Is not your self-made man — who, as Horace 
Greeley said, is sometimes too inclined to worship his own 
creator — often the most haughty, overbearing, and tyran- 
nical? 1 Not always ; for nobler men do not live than some 
of these. But too often it is true, and the laborer whose 
master was once a workingman himself has then cause to regret 
it. It ought at the same time to be remarked, that where 
one laborer rises to the position of a wealthy man, ten small 
producers have lost their independent positions and fallen 
into the rank of wage-receivers. The gradual disappearance 
of the village carpenter, the village shoemaker, and others 
of that class, is a fact well known in our own East ; and in 
older countries, the distress of the once large and flourishing- 
class of small masters working with two or three journeymen 
has given rise to a social problem. 

Let us allude to another allied fallacy. The news- 
papers tell us that the sons of rich men squander their 
property and fall into the ranks of poor people ; and 

1 See Dickens' " Hard Times " for a description of the worst class 
of self-made men. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 95 

this is repeated again and again as if it ought to allay 
anxiety about the future. Most happily the statement 
is only exceptionally true; but if it were the unfortu- 
nate state of affairs, how could it solve any social prob- 
lem? 

Let us put away all these shallow sophistries. What we 
want in this country is to know how to improve the laboring 
man as a laboring man — for such the great mass must 
remain for many years to come, and it may be safe to say 
for generations to come, whatever unknown conditions a 
future social development may bring us. To elevate the 
farmer as a farmer, the mechanic as a mechanic, the artisan 
as an artisan, in short, to lift the entire "Fourth Estate," as 
it is called, should be the effort of public reform and private 
philanthropy. It is not our public schools in themselves 
which turn our youth away from manual occupations, but 
the cry " rise in life " which fills the air and which leads to 
false estimates of human worthiness. Truly, every one 
should attempt to " rise in life " in the correct meaning of 
those words, but our schoolbooks, our periodicals for the 
young, and, one might almost say, our entire literature, all 
are carrying to our young people throughout the length and 
breadth of the land the conception that to rise in life means 
to become a great manufacturer, a railway president, or a 
merchant prince. No wonder that humble toil is scorned. 
Wise words uttered by Charles Kingsley, a man who has 
done great things to elevate the masses, deserve to be 
emphasized among us precisely at the present time, even 
though they may contain a slight exaggeration of the truth 
which I would convey. " I do not think," says Kingsley, 
" the cry ' get on ' to be anything but a deviPs cry. The 
moral of my book [Alton Locke] is that the workingman 
who tries to get on, to desert his class and rise above it, 



96 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

enters into a lie, and leaves God's path for his own — with 
consequences. 1 

" Second, I believe that a man might be, as a tailor or a 
costermonger, every inch of him a saint and scholar and a 
gentleman, for I have seen some few such already. I 
believe hundreds of thousands more would be so if their 
businesses were put on a Christian footing and themselves 
given by education, sanitary reforms, etc., the means of 
developing their own latent capabilities. I think the cry 
'rise in life ' has been excited by tjie very increasing im- 
possibility of being anything but brutes while they struggle 
below. ... I believe from experience that when you put 
workmen into human dwellings and give them a Christian 
education, so far from wishing discontentedly to rise out of 
their class or to level others to it, exactly the opposite takes 
place. They become sensible of the dignity of work, and 
they begin to see their labor as a true calling in God's 
church now that it is cleared from the accidentia which 
made it look in their eyes only a soulless drudgery in a 
devil's workshop of a world." 

Trades-unions and labor organizations are, then, designed 
to remove disadvantages under which the great mass of 
workingmen suffer, and must continue to suffer unless they 
get relief either by voluntary combination or by combined 
political action. What are these disadvantages ? Adam 
Smith and his French predecessors, the Physiocrats, desired 
to remove from the laborer all legal restrictions which im- 
peded his freedom of movement, and to give him the right 
to enter into such agreements with those who might desire 

1 The hero of this wonderful novel expresses the complaint in one 
place — and that with a tinge of bitterness — that the workingman who 
remains true to his class and tries to help it, is called a demagogue. Is 
this true only of England? 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 97 

his service as he could effect. The reforms which they 
proposed, and which subsequent legislation in the latter 
part of the eighteenth century and the earlier part of the 
nineteenth introduced, were chiefly l negative in their char- 
acter. The watchword was, " Remove the shackles." The 
economic philosophers of the time believed that legal 
equality and freedom of contract were the sole conditions 
needed to enable the working classes to secure a share of 
the product of national industry, a share sufficient to serve 
as a basis for their physical, ethical, and spiritual develop- 
ment. This theory was based on two fallacies, — the first was 
the assumption of the natural equality of men. " The differ- 
ences found among men in their opinion were not due to 
original, native qualities, but were the result of education, 2 
legislation, and government. Could the restrictions of the 
State be removed they believed that each member of society 
would be able to promote his own interests most efficiently 
without aid from others, and would be able to guard his 
own interests in the economic struggle for existence. But 
the equality of men is a chimera, and only those of extraor- 
dinary capacities have the ability so to utilize the resources 
at their command as to obtain the highest possible return 
from them." The inequality of men in economic affairs, and 
the inability of those who occupy a lower grade in economic 

1 The word chiefly is used advisedly. Important exceptions can be 
found in Adam Smith ; for example, he says, that whenever any legisla- 
tion favors the workingman, it is always just. 

2 Adam Smith dwells at length on the idea that the difference be- 
tween a superior member of the upper classes and a very ordinary 
man, is due chiefly, if not wholly, to education and early surroundings. 
Had their places been changed in infancy, the change would have con- 
tinued, so he argues, throughout life. There is doubtless a large kernel 
of truth in this, but its import is exaggerated. Exaggerated still further, 
it became the doctrine of circumstances advocated by Robert Owen. 



98 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

development to obtain a satisfactory share of the products 
of industrial activity, is seen most vividly in the case of 
our native Indians. It has taken us hundreds and perhaps 
thousands of years to arrive at our present economic stage 
of growth since we left the " hunting and fishing stage," and 
when the Indians are immediately transferred to the con- 
ditions of our industrial civilization, they are apt to be 
economically ruined. This was demonstrated in the case of 
the Chippewa Indians in Michigan. When their reserva- 
tion was divided and given to thern in severalty, white 
scoundrels soon got it away from them, and it is said that 
designing men who have covetous eyes fastened on the 
Indian reservations are at the bottom of the present agita- 
tion to have land granted to the Indians in severalty. 1 Now 
our laboring classes are happily not in the condition of the 
Indians. The average man has advanced beyond that stage, 
but it is true that " those whose economic qualifications are 
only average will never attain even a moderate development 
of their natural capacities without organization." 

The second fallacy was the assumption that labor is a 
commodity just like other commodities, and the laborer a 
man with a commodity for sale just like other men who 
offer their wares to the public. It is true that labor is a 
commodity, for it is bought and sold, but there are peculi- 
arities about it which distinguish it from other commodities, 
and that most radically. 

While labor is a commodity, it is an expenditure of human 
force which involves the welfare of a personality. It is a 
commodity which is inseparably bound up with the laborer, 

1 Of course some sincere men who desire only the true good of the 
Indian favor this proposition. It is possible it might be desirable, if 
absolute inalienability were a condition. At any rate the friends of the 
Indian should proceed carefully in this matter. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 99 

and in this it differs from other commodities. The one who 
offers other commodities for sale reserves his own person. 
The farmer who parts with a thousand bushels of wheat for 
money reserves control of his own actions. They are not 
brought in question at all. Again, the man of property who 
sells other commodities has an option. He may part with 
his wares and maintain his life from other goods received in 
exchange, or he can have recourse to his labor-power. The 
laborer, however, has, as a rule, only the service residing in 
his own person with which to sustain himself and his family. 
Again, a machine, a locomotive, for example, and a 
workingman resemble each other in this : they both ren- 
der sendees, and the fate of both depends upon the manner 
in which these services are extracted. But there is this 
radical difference : the machine which yields its service to 
man is itself a commodity, and is only a means to an end, 
while the laborer who parts with labor is no longer a com- 
modity in civilized lands, but is an end in himself, for man 
is the beginning and termination of all economic life. The 
consequence for the great mass of laborers possessed of 
only average qualities are as follows, provided there is no 
intervention of legislation, and provided the working classes 
are not organized. While those who sell other commodities 
are able to influence the price by a suitable regulation of 
production, so as to bring about a satisfactory relation 
between supply and demand, the purchaser of labor has 
it in his own power to determine the price of this commod- 
ity and the other conditions of sale. There may be excep- 
tions for a time in a new country, but these are temporary 
and often more apparent than real. Even now in the 
United States the right of capital to rule is generally 
assumed as a matter of course, and when labor would de- 
termine price and conditions of service, it is called dicta- 



100 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

tion. The reason is that man comes to this world without 
reference to supply and demand, 1 and the poverty of the 
laborer compels him to offer the use of his labor-power 
unreservedly and continuously. The purchase of labor 
gives control over the laborer and a far-reaching influence 
over his physical, intellectual, social, and ethical existence. 
The conditions of the labor-contract determine the amount 
of this rulership. Again, while illness, inability to labor, by 
reason of accident or old age and death, do not destroy 
other commodities or their power to support life, when these 
misfortunes overtake the person of the laborer, he loses his 
power to sell his only property, the commodity labor, and 
he can no longer support himself and those dependent on 
him. These consequences of the peculiarity of labor may 
be summed up as follows : — 

i. The absence of actual equality between the two parties 
to the labor- contract, and the one-sided determination of 
the price and other conditions of labor. 

2. The almost unlimited control of the employer over 
the social and political life, the physical and spiritual exist- 
ence, and the expenditures of his employees. 

3. The uncertainty of existence which, more than actual 
difference in possessions, distinguishes the well-to-do from 
the poor. 

These consequences of the peculiarities of labor must be 
examined somewhat more at length, and this will be done 
under three different headings, it being understood that the 

1 There are certain qualifications to what is here said, which the 
limits of this book will not allow me to enumerate. It would be far 
too large a work for present purposes, were every topic to be treated 
exhaustively. I always take it for granted that my reader is possessed 
of common sense, and will not raise trivial objections; also that he is 
to do some thinking himself. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 101 

argument is based on the supposition that labor is unorgan- 
ized and devoid of legal protection. 

I. The laborer considered as a seller of a commodity. 
The laborer must offer labor in the labor-market in which 
he resides, and cannot seek the best market, or even a 
better market, like others who sell commodities. He is 
often too uneducated to know the conditions of the labor- 
market in other localities, and too ignorant to be able to 
pass judgment on such data as are at his command. When 
he does know, his poverty frequently prevents his removal ; 
for he cannot sell his commodity in a remote place unless 
he removes his own person thither, nor can he ship, as 
others do, a sample of his commodity. 

If the demand falls, labor cannot be withdrawn from the 
market like other wares. On the contrary, as the demand 
decreases, the supply must increase by reason of competi- 
tion of a greater number of laborers. There are several 
causes for this. Members of the family who before did not 
work outside the home, chiefly children and women, will 
seek labor to eke out the fathers income. A decreased 
demand usually occurs at time of a general depression, and 
the ranks of the workingmen are enlarged by accessions 
from other social classes. Competition may thus increase 
in severity almost to an unlimited extent between laborers, 
to secure what little work there is. Thus it happens that 
when demand for labor diminishes, the fall in wages is 
apt to be more than in proportion to this diminution in 
demand. 

The cost of production is the limit below which the 
price of other commodities cannot permanently fall, for the 
production is diminished as the price falls, and at times 
ceases almost altogether. But the individual laborer can- 
not diminish his supply of labor so long as he lives, and 



102 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

misery and death l are the factors which must bring about a 
decrease in the supply of this commodity, and raise its 
price to the cost of production ; in other words, to what it 
costs the laborer and his family to live, and to maintain the 
customary standard of life among the members of his class. 

Closely connected with the foregoing is the fact that the 
price of labor does not at once rise when the demand in- 
creases, as is usually the case with other commodities, for the 
first effect is that the unemployed receive work ; and after 
the " reserve-army " finds employment, competition among 
purchasers of labor raises its price. 

Finally, the only way to diminish the supply of the com- 

1 The way these operate is so simple that it ought to be better 
understood. Few now starve outright; but a large number, especially 
of the young, starve gradually, as has been abundantly shown by recent 
investigations; but many more deaths are occasioned in other ways. 
A carpenter is ill, and previous hard times have exhausted his re- 
sources. He dies; whereas a more generous supply of delicacies, better 
nursing, and more skilful medical attendance would have saved his 
life. A second mechanic is so poor that he feels that he cannot afford 
an umbrella. In a severe rain-storm to which he is exposed, the seeds 
of consumption are laid. A third is unable to afford new shoes, and 
wet feet at a time of feebleness, and insufficient nourishment, cause his 
death. These examples may be multiplied ad libitum. Thus it is that 
every pressure of hard times kills thousands upon thousands even in 
America. The most distinguished statistician of our day, Dr. Engel, 
calls the causes of most deaths "social." The difficulty is not to 
prescribe a remedy, but to apply it. A physician cannot tell a man, 
working for a dollar a day, to take a trip to Egypt for weak lungs ! 
No current fiction is more widely removed from the truth than the 
common assertion that workingmen and their families enjoy exception- 
ally good health. The exact opposite is the truth, and statistics have 
established the fact beyond controversy, that laborers are shorter-lived 
by many years than those who belong to the wealthier social classes. 
Dr. Lyman Abbott quotes some interesting statistics on this subject in 
a recent article in the Century Magazine. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, 103 

modity labor in the market in the future, is, by prudence 
in marriage, to diminish the birth-rate. But to accomplish 
this, will and intelligence are necessary, and some probabil- 
ity that the laborer would reap the fruits of his self-denial. 
No such guarantee exists because the folly of his fellows will 
render his prudence of no avail. In addition to this, the 
laborer in America can hope to influence the supply of 
labor offered in the market of the future, only when he 
gains some control over immigration. 

II. Consequences affecting the personal life of the laborer. 
— The employer is able to determine the conditions of the 
labor-contract in such manner that he may exercise ruler- 
ship over the laborer in four ways : — 

i. He can influence the expenditures of the laborer in 
such manner as to render him nearly as dependent as a 
serf. One method is to pay the laborer only at long inter- 
vals, which leads almost inevitably to the use of credit and 
this means debt. Those who are unable to pay current 
expenses at the time when incurred are apt to lead a less 
economical life, and thus debt becomes chronic and the 
prospect of escape well-nigh hopeless. 1 Sometimes the 
employer lends money — already earned — to his employees, 
and thus keeps them always in debt to him. A more com- 
mon method used in America to establish the dependence 
of the employee and to keep back part of his wages, is the 

1 One of the largest employers of labor in this country, who prac- 
tices what he preaches, tells me that in his opinion, one of the first 
steps in the improvement in the condition of the laborer is weekly pay- 
ments. He has given me many facts which have come under his 
observation to show the importance of this measure. If I understand 
him, he is so thoroughly persuaded that weekly payments are an indis- 
pensable condition of reform that he would interpose no objection to 
legal compulsion. 



104 



THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 



truck system, which is perhaps more widely prevalent in 
this country than elsewhere. It may be well to explain for the 
benefit of some readers less familiar with practical life, that 
the truck system means the establishment of stores by em- 
ployers, in which their employees are practically compelled to 
trade. Generally there is nominal, but only nominal, liberty 
granted the employees to buy where they choose. These are 
often paid in orders on stores in which the employer or his 
agent has an interest, and these orders are accepted else- 
where only at a discount. Sometimes wages are paid in a 
shop or saloon late at night, so as to encourage expenditure 
in the same place \ occasionally there is an understanding 
with a shopkeeper, who gives the employer a percentage on 
all purchases of employees. An employer has been known 
to redeem his own orders at a discount of ten per cent 
when handed in by the local dealers. Notice is taken of 
those who do not purchase at the company store, and they 
stand in danger of discharge. Another form of payment in 
kind, consists in the occupation of houses owned by the 
employer. Those who live elsewhere are usually the first 
discharged. 

So great is the injury to the working classes that in several 
States these practices are forbidden by law ; but there are 
always unscrupulous employers who do not hesitate to dis- 
obey laws in favor of labor, and so great is their influence 
that the law is not generally enforced. 

The laborer is frequently cheated in weight, quality, and 
price. A journal in Pittsburg recently sent an agent to a well- 
known industrial region to investigate the charge preferred 
by workingmen against their employers that they, the em- 
ployees, were compelled to purchase goods at the company 
stores at exorbitant prices. The employers denied the 
truth of this, and maintained that no one was compelled to 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, 105 

buy at "our store." The workingmen replied in sub- 
stance, so the newspaper stated, "You lie." The reporter 
of the journal found the charge substantiated, and by in- 
quiring at various stores ascertained that the average excess 
of charges on a number of specified articles was sixty 
per cent. The overcharge on other articles was smaller, 
but he credited the statement of a laborer that he was com- 
pelled to pay fully twenty to twenty-five per cent more for 
his goods than the prices elsewhere. " If we don't deal 
with the company," continued he, "we are quickly told to 
go and get work from the men we buy our goods of." 
Reports of the bureaus of labor statistics abound with com- 
plaints of this character, and I myself have seen a miner's 
book in which receipts and charges exactly balanced at the 
close of the month, leaving the poor fellow without one 
cent in cash \ I noticed, too, that the company store did not 
furnish details. The charge was not so many pounds of 
sugar, so much; but, sugar, 56 cents; pork, 70 cents, etc. 1 

1 An Ohio commission, consisting of Professor Orton, of the State 
University, and one employer and one miner, investigated this subject 
in the mining district of Ohio two years ago. From their report I 
quote these words : — 

" Throughout the counties of Perry, Hocking, Athens, Vinton, Jack- 
son, and Lawrence, stores are connected with most of the principal 
coal mines, at which, as a rule, the miners are expected, and thus 
indirectly obliged, to purchase their supplies in whole or in part. . . . 
If their cash balances are too large, they are sometimes reminded of 
their duty to spend more at the stores. 

"Throughout this same territory, checks, scrip, .and orders are 
largely used, in open disregard of the laws passed to prevent their use. 

"The truck system has a depressing and demoralizing influence 
upon the laborer. . . . This system, however designed and however 
guarded, inflicts upon the communities where it is in force the evils of 
a depreciated currency, in addition to the extravagance and over-trading 
which it everywhere encourages." 



106 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Another form of oppression better known in Europe than 
in this country, in which, if it exists at all, it is rare, is found 
in the compulsory insurance connected with certain lines 
of employment. Those who accept labor in some estab- 
lishments, particularly in Germany, are compelled to take 
out insurance to provide for cases of accident, for disease, 
old age, etc. Dismissal renders it impossible to continue 
payments, and the employees will often submit to much 
hardship sooner than lose the provision against misfortune, 
anr". incur risk for themselves and for their families. 

2. The employer exercises an influence over the health 
of his employees as well as over life and limb. Where the 
commodity labor is desired, there the laborer must abide. 
He is thus compelled to risk health in ill-ventilated rooms, 
or rooms over-heated or under-heated, and his life is need- 
lessly jeopardized by failure to fence in dangerous machin- 
ery, or to employ other well-known life-saving devices. It 
is reported that there are yearly fifteen thousand accidents 
to railway employees in the United States, and it is not 
improbable that two-thirds of these are needless. Again, 
when an employer directs labor, he chooses the place where 
the laborer must pass the greater part of the time not con- 
sumed in sleep, and in this manner selects the laborer's 
companions for more than half his life. The order is, You 
must work here in this place by the side of this man, 
whether he is a responsible man or a scoundrel ; whether a 
skilful artisan or a careless and inexperienced mechanic, 
who exposes your life to constant danger. 1 Finally, when 

1 This is an especially important consideration in mines and on 
railways, considering the interpretation the courts of many States are 
putting upon the doctrine of " fellow-servant." There is now practically 
no redress when an employee is maimed or killed. Vide Christian 
Union, July 22, 1886, for a resumi of the law. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 107 

the length of time of each day's labor is fixed by the em- 
ployer, he determines the physical exhaustion of the laborer \ 
he also decides whether the pregnant woman in his service 
shall give birth to a sound, healthy child, or one weak and 
feeble ; also whether the children who toil for him shall 
become strong men and women, or old before their 
time. 1 

3. The influence of the employer over the mental and 
moral development of the laboring classes is not less power- 
"til ; and when this has been said, it is seen to how large °n 
extent the future of the nation depends upon the large em- 
ployers of labor, whether private individuals or corporations. 
This influence is exerted through selection of companions 
and the decision in regard to the length of the working day ; 
further by action with reference to night- work, work beneath 
the surface of the earth, to regulations concerning the labor 
of women and children, etc. All this is of importance for 
the family life and for the education of the laboring classes. 
Overwork, and work under unfavorable conditions in regard 
to temperature and the like, are responsible for much 
intemperance among the working classes, as every com- 
petent physician who has had experience among them well 
knows. 

4. Employers are able to influence the political and 
religious life of their employees. Religious opinions in the 
United States are generally left to the laborers without inter- 
ference, though not always ; but it may be doubted if inter- 
ference with political rights is anywhere carried further. I 
know a whole town, for example, whose inhabitants while 
free in certain elections, in others are marched like sheep to 

1 In the first half of the century English laborers not infrequently 
became old at thirty, and physicians began to express the fear that the 
English race was about to enter a period of physical degeneration. 



108 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

the polls, and ordered to vote in a manner well pleasing to 
a great corporation. 1 

III. The character of modern industry rendered it diffi- 
cult, and, until organization or government came to his assist- 
ance, impossible for the average laborer to provide proper 
economic security for himself and his family by means of 
insurance. Every loss of work involved a loss of power to 
contribute to relief funds of any description. 

It is on account of these peculiarities of the commodity 
labor, together with changes in industrial processes due to 
inventions and discoveries, that trie hopes of Adam Smith 
and his friends have not been realized. Not many, only a 
few, have become independent producers. The vast majority 
of the industrial classes have remained employees, and most 
of their employers have in older countries, probably to a less 
extent in America, used their power unscrupulously; and 
even those who have no wish to do so, have often been forced 
by competition to establish harder and harder conditions of 
toil for the laborer. Formerly the number of apprentices 
was regulated by law, or by custom having the force of law. 
When this restriction was removed, experienced journeymen 
were dismissed in large masses, and their places supplied by 
apprentices. When machinery became more perfect, women 
and children replaced men ; and it has happened in Massa- 
chusetts, as well as in England, that the father has remained 
at home and cared for the house and the babies while his 
wife and children have worked in the factory for the support 
of the family. Unnatural competitors ! Unnatural relation ! 

1 Once it was impossible to hire a man to distribute ballots for the 
party not in favor with this corporation. A man was found with 
difficulty who promised to render the service for five dollars, but before 
the time came, he begged to be released from his promise because he 
would otherwise lose his employment. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 109 

And as machinery became more general and more costly, 
the length of the working day was lengthened until it 
became, even for women and children, sixteen and eighteen 
hours in cases not rare. Indeed, it has been generally 
longer where women and children have been the predomi- 
nating labor force, because they are less powerful to resist 
oppression. Then, as production on a larger and ever 
larger scale took the place of the small shops, crises became 
more common and more disastrous. Men were no longer 
hired for a long period, but from day to day, and that un- 
certainty and irregularity of income which is so disastrous 
to society became general. High wages were followed by a 
total absence of work. Thousands of laborers became 
tramps, their daughters prostitutes, and their sons criminals. 
Reduction after reduction of wages followed. When the 
laborers combined to withdraw a quantity of their property, 
the commodity labor, from the market, so as to raise its 
price just as sellers of other commodities do, they were 
thrown into prison ; for the old conspiracy and combination 
laws continued long after the legal protection afforded labor 
by a previous generation had been abolished. 1 Even after 
the abolition of these laws, the opposition of employers and 
the excessive control they had acquired over the working 
classes long interposed almost insuperable obstacles in the 
way of trades-unions. In the north of England in 1844, 
forty thousand miners were discharged to force them to 

1 The laws against combinations were abolished in England in 1824, 
but the courts continued to oppose trades-unions until 1869 as being 
"in restraint of trade," and the courts did not protect them until 
authorized by the legislation of 1 87 1. The laws against combinations, 
or " coalitions/' continued in force in France until 1864. In Austria 
they were abolished about the same time; but not in all parts of Ger- 
many until 1 87 1. They were not abolished in Maryland until 1884. 



110 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

abandon their combination, and in July, 1881, a large em« 
ployer in the Rhine Province in Germany threatened to 
dismiss every laborer who belonged to a trades-union, 
or who read certain books, or who frequented certain 
restaurants, or who bought goods of certain merchants 
mentioned by name, who were supposed to favor trades- 
unions. 

In this country we have added two refinements of cruelty,, 
called the black list and the iron-clad oath, which are 
found in all parts of our land^ although strongly con- 
demned by the best public sentiment. The black list is 
a "boycott" against labor. A man who for any reason, 
be it even whim, caprice, or personal spite, falls into dis- 
favor with one employer, is placed on the black list, and 
his name, at times accompanied by a personal description, 
is sent to allied employers all over the country. Thirty- 
three men were black-listed in Fall River a few years ago 
because they had asked for an increase of wages, and they 
were compelled to seek work under assumed names. It is 
reported, on apparently good authority, that one railway cor- 
poration has a book containing names of a thousand black- 
listed persons, with a full description of each. The black 
list will pursue a man for years, will drive him out of an 
honest trade to rum-selling, and will follow him across the 
continent, and everywhere defeat his efforts to gain a liveli- 
hood. Two quotations from persons who have had oppor- 
tunity to see the workings of the black list will help my 
readers to understand its terrible atrocity. The first is from 
Fred Woodrow's contribution to the "Labor Problem. ,,1 
" Black-listing . . . has the merit of being very effective ; its 
edict is final; it troubles no jury and sends for no sheriff; 
... it has its watch- dog by every door, and woe to the man 
1 Harper & Brothers, New York, 1886, pp. 288-9. 






ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. Ill 

who, with its brand on his brow, seeks for work. ... He is 
proclaimed by a corporation Czar. ... I well remember a 
workmate of my own being put under this ban of ostracism. 
He was discharged without notice, and the reason refused 
him. I did my best for his re-engagement \ previous suc- 
cesses made me confident, but this case baffled me. I 
suggested application to another department, under the 
management of a humane and kindly man. He refused. 
Another was tried — the same result. I completed the 
circle, and in every case blank but unwilling refusal — my 
unfortunate comrade sent adrift, with the onus of some un- 
known disgrace staining his name, for more than six hundred 
miles. It came to my knowledge subsequently that he was 
blacklisted at the request of one man, whose personal ill- 
will was gratified in his discharge. Such cases are not few, 
... as many a hungry man and shoeless child can testify." 
The second quotation is from the Cleveland Workman, and 
is taken by that paper from one of its "exchanges." "There 
are men in this region who are now being compelled to leave 
their homes, their families, and their friends, and seek em- 
ployment elsewhere, — men who have given their time and 
influence for the benefit of the community in which they 
reside. . . . They have been exiled from their pleasant 
associations here by the infamous black list." A peculiarly 
cruel case is told in the same paper. A man of seventy had 
left his old wife in Sedalia, Mo. (where he had been working 
for many years) , because he was discharged, and walked five 
hundred miles to a place in Illinois where a new railway was 
building, but the black list followed him and at last accounts 
he was penniless and without work. 

The iron-clad oath is an agreement to do or not to do 
certain things as a condition of employment ; generally not 
to join a labor organization. The following is the form of 



112 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

one of these oaths. 1 " I, A. B., hereby agree to work for 
C. D. at my trade at the regular established prices . . . 
withdrawing from the Knights of Labor, and ignoring all 
outside parties, committees, and trade or labor associations, 
and also agree not to connect myself with the Knights of 
Labor or any similar organization, or to join in any meeting 
or procession of any such organizations while in the employ 
of said CD." 

The President of the Congregational Club of New York, 
himself a man of wealth and a large; employer of labor, pub- 
licly characterized the iron-clad oath not long ago as the 
sure and certain beginning of a system of white slavery. 

" The lack of any education of those children employed 
in the factories in tender years, the destruction of family 
life caused by the employment of women, and the social 
separation of the laborers from other classes destroyed civil- 
ized habits of life and thought among the laborers. A 
strange and special range of ideas sprang up among work- 
ing men thrown together in great masses in industrial cen- 
tres and in a state of subjection to their employers. There 
arose two nations within the same nation, the one the ruling 
nation, the other the ruled; the one possessing a high 
culture in which the other did not participate; the one, 
the ruling, fearing the ruled, while the ruled hated the rul- 
ing nation ; two nations whose interests and ideas were so 
different that in spite of the common language they no 
longer understood each other." 

It may be that this separation has not gone so far with 

1 I wish to avoid useless personalities, and do not mention any 
names. In other places I pursue the same course; but I think that 
there is abundance of testimony to establish all that is said in this 
book, and that it is not inaccessible to those who desire to know the 
truth. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 113 

us as it went at one time in England and Germany and 
France ; but now it is proceeding more rapidly here than 
elsewhere. In England, and to a less degree in Germany, 
brave men of exalted natures have thrown themselves into 
the breach, and in spite of slander, obloquy, and social per- 
secution, have persisted in their efforts until they have 
brought the two nations nearer together, and have helped 
to maintain the unity of civilization \ with us, comparatively 
few have realized their duty in this matter, and it is doubt- 
ful if history records any more rapid social movement than 
this ominous separation of the American people into two 
nations. Already they scarcely understand each other even 
when they speak the same language ; already there are two 
public opinions supported respectively by a partisan capital- 
istic press and a partisan labor press ; already there begins 
a class struggle for political supremacy; already religious 
lines are becoming, have become to an alarming extent in 
our great cities, social lines, and there is a wide-spread feel- 
ing among the working classes that the church of their em- 
ployers cannot be the church for them, that the God of the 
rich is no God whom they can worship. 

Nothing of graver import has ever befallen this people of 
the United States. Unless powerful forces calculated to 
keep alive the unity of civilization among us can be 
brought into action, our future downfall will be inevitable. 
The policeman's club, the prowling detective's doubtful 
services, the soldier's rifle, the careless bullet of hired mer- 
cenaries, exceptional laws, novel judicial procedure, and 
new and strained interpretations of the law, — all these are 
not the unifying,, life-giving forces which this land of ours 
needs. Our country's best, the purest and noblest and 
grandest men and women of our time, must avert the dan- 
ger \ and if it requires a sacrifice of themselves, a Christian 



114 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

people can find an historical example in the person of their 
Lord who left the society, not of the rich and cultured of 
earth, but of the angels in heaven, to live the life of a 
humble mechanic at a time when that life was despised 
with a scorn strange and unknown in our day, that he might 
supply a bond of union not merely between God and man, 
but between man and man ; for did not he pray for all his 
followers in all time "that they all may be one, as thou 
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one 
in us . . . that they may be madejperfect in one." 

The disadvantages under which those are placed who live 
by the sale of the commodity labor have been briefly ex- 
amined. It remains to show the manner in which trades- 
unions and labor organizations may operate to counteract 
these economic evils. 

The labor organizations enable the laborer to withhold 
his commodity temporarily from the market, and to wait for 
more satisfactory conditions of service than it is possible for 
him to secure when he is obliged to offer it unconditionally. 
They further enable him to gain the advantages of an in- 
creased demand for his commodity, to bring about a more 
satisfactory relation than would otherwise be possible be- 
tween the supply and the demand for labor, and also to 
exercise an influence upon the supply in the future market. 
These organizations are calculated to do away with the inju- 
rious consequences of the peculiarities of labor as a com- 
modity to be sold, and " through them labor for the first 
time becomes really a commodity, and the laborer a man." 

The trades-unions, and other agencies of the labor move- 
ment, such as the labor press, assist the laborer to find the 
best market for his commodity ; and as the best market 
usually means the most productive market considered from 
a politico-economic standpoint, this is of benefit to society 






ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 115 

as a whole. There are several ways in which this is done. 
The organs of the trades-unions and other labor newspapers, 
publish statistics concerning the state of trade in various 
localities. Laborers are informed, for example, that there is 
plenty of work for printers in Boston, but little in New York ; 
that the building trades are rather active in Baltimore, but 
dull in Richmond. The Workman 1 of Cleveland, Ohio, 
formerly published a " Cleveland Labor Market Report," 
giving the hours of work, the pay, the state of the market, 
whether active or dull, etc., for the various trades in the 
city. It seems to have abandoned this excellent plan, but 
some twenty labor papers have formed an Associated Labor 
Press, and each paper furnishes all the others with labor 
items gathered in its own locality. This idea of labor-mar- 
ket reports is certain to have a further and a beneficial 
development in the future. Employers also engage em- 
ployees through the various labor organizations. When a 
" boss " in Baltimore desires bricklayers, he sends a notice 
to the hall of the Bricklayers' Union, and it is written on the 
blackboard where it can be seen by those who want work. 
In the same way employers engage men through the Granite 
Cutters' National Union. Before me lies an advertisement 
which I found posted up in the headquarters of that union 
in Philadelphia. It reads as follows : — 

" WANTED. 

Fifty Good Granite Cutters wanted immediately at Granite- 

ville, Mo. Apply to the Graniteville Granite Co., 

Graniteville, Iron County, Missouri." 

1 This newspaper, by the way, is one of the best representatives of 
the labor press. It is edited by a graduate of Amherst College, who 
originally intended to go to China as a missionary, but was prevented 
by a physical infirmity. He evidently believes that he has found a 
good missionary field in this country. I understand he derives his 
livelihood from the practice of medicine. 



116 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

The labor organizations further render it easy for the artisan 
or mechanic in a new city to form useful connections with 
those pursuing the same trade. But these associations of 
laborers aid them in finding a market for their commodity in 
a still more direct manner. They assist laborers to go in 
search of work with gifts and loans of money. Members of 
the Cigar Makers' International Union, for example, received 
$19,722.60 during the fiscal year ending November, 1882, 
for this purpose. This benefit paid, consisted of railway fare 
from town to town, and of fifty centsjfor meals in each place. 
When the demand for labor falls, it is the practice of the 
older, stronger unions not to allow their members to work 
below the usual rate of wages, and this is one of the chief 
means to maintain the standard of life among laborers — a 
matter of vital importance in the opinion of political econ- 
omists. If there is a decreased demand, all would not find 
employment at reduced wages; but, as has already been 
seen, one reduction would simply give rise to another. The 
labor organizations prefer, therefore, to support their mem- 
bers until the labor market improves, or to work fewer 
hours each day rather than to work at reduced wages. 1 
When the labor market improves, it is not necessary to 
struggle for the old rates, but those who were out of work 
step into their former places. On the other hand, there is a 
tendency — and a wise one — in the older regions of trades- 
unions where they have fought their preliminary battles, have 
secured recognition, and thus opportunity for a normal 
development, not to ask for an increase of wages with every 
temporary improvement in business, but rather to use it to 

1 This applies more particularly to English trades-unions. Ours are 
not yet so strong in financial resources, nor have they so fixed a policy, 
but the tendency is the same. All over the world — the modern civil- 
ized world — labor organizations move in the same general direction. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 117 

secure other concessions, and to ask for higher wages only 
at comparatively rare intervals. Their aim is to secure the 
conditions of a slow, sure, and steady growth. 

If there is a permanent decrease in demand for labor, the 
tactics of the trades-unions must be changed. Laborers are 
assisted to move to new regions ; in Europe they are helped 
to emigrate. The future market is further influenced by the 
regulation of apprenticeship. "The first object of the lim- 
itation of the number of apprentices is to prevent the dis- 
placement of journeymen by apprentices who in turn would 
be discharged as soon as they had learned the trade, to 
make way for a new army of apprentices. 1 But the limita- 
tion of the labor supply in the future is necessarily con- 
nected with this, and that is a conscious aim of the unions. 
There can be no objection to this limitation from the 
standpoint of right and law so long as the laborers use no 
other means to enforce their regulations than the refusal to 
work with more than a certain number of apprentices. But 
from the standpoint of political economy, which demands 
that a man should proportion the supply of his commodity 
to the demand, and holds him responsible for an excess of 
supply, the laborers not only have the right to do this, but 
they are even under moral obligations to do it." 

Finally, the trades-unions educate the laborers to pru- 
dence in marriage. They accustom their members to over- 

?• As early as 1350 the guild masters attempted to injure the journey- 
men by the employment of an undue number of apprentices; and this 
has ever since been a device of unscrupulous employers who desire 
unemployed men about them so as to get a tighter grip on their em- 
ployees. While it is doubtless true that the majority of employers 
have ever repudiated such methods, there have always been so many 
employers who have not scorned such unworthy practices, that the 
trades-unions have in self-defence been forced to take an attitude 
which is frequently misunderstood. 



118 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 






look the field of labor, to pass judgment on the prospect of 
satisfactory remuneration for their commodity in the future ; 
they help them to secure higher wages than would otherwise 
be possible, so that they have something to lose ; they 
awaken in them a regard for the welfare of others, and culti- 
vate a feeling of duty with respect to their conduct toward 
others ; finally, the limitation of the number of apprentices 
is a guarantee — imperfect, to be sure, still a guarantee of 
some value — that those who are prudent and restrain their 
desires will reap the benefit of their sacrifices. "Experi- 
ence teaches that the trades-unionists of England are more 
prudent in regard to marriage than the unskilled laborers 
who belong to no organizations. ,, 

Topics which will find treatment in the two following 
chapters have an important bearing on the economic value 
of labor organizations. This is the case in particular with 
arbitration and the character of these various societies as 
mutual aid associations. The educational value of labor 
organization is an allied topic ; and indeed there is nothing 
which affects them in any way which might not be con- 
sidered in the present chapter, so closely connected with 
one another are all the various phases of our social and 
industrial life. The fact has been frequently remarked, that 
the entire life of man in society is one ; yet for the sake of 
convenience we divide and subdivide it by more or less 
arbitrary lines. 

John Stuart Mill recognized the economic value of labor 
organizations at an early date, and assigned them an impor- 
tant place in our industrial organism. This is the more 
surprising as the now antiquated theory of the wages-fund, 
in which he himself believed when he wrote the words I am 
about to quote, blinded most political economists to the 
true functions of labor organizations, and even led him to 
underrate their power for good. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, 119 

" I do not hesitate," writes Mill in his ' Political Econ- 
omy/ 1 "to say that associations of laborers, of a nature 
similar to trades-unions, far from being a hindrance to a free 
market for labor, are the necessary instrumentality of that 
free market, the indispensable means of making the sellers 
of labor to take due care of their own interests under a 
system of competition. There is an ulterior consideration 
of much importance, to which attention was for the first 
time drawn by Professor Fawcett in an article in the West- 
minster Review. Experience has at length enabled the 
more intelligent trades to take a tolerably correct measure 
of the circumstances on which the success of a strike for an 
advance of wages depends. The workmen are now nearly 
as well informed as the master, of the state of the market 
for his commodities ; they can calculate his gains and his 
expenses ; they know when his trade is or is not prosperous, 
and only when it is, are they ever again likely to strike for 
higher wages ; which wages their known readiness to strike 
makes their employers for the most part willing to concede. 
The tendency, therefore, of this state of things is to make a 
rise of wages in any particular trade, usually consequent 
upon a rise of profits, which, as Mr. Fawcett observes, is a 
commencement of that regular participation of the laborers 
in the profits derived from their labor, every tendency to 
which, for the reasons stated in a previous chapter, it is so 
important to encourage, since to it we have chiefly to look 
for any radical improvement in the social and economical 
relations between labor and capital. Strikes, therefore, and 
the trade societies which render strikes possible, are for 
these various reasons not a mischievous, but, on the con- 
trary, a valuable part of the existing machinery of society." 

1 Book V., chapter X., section 5. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZA- 
TIONS. 

THE propositions which I wish Jo prove and to illustrate, 
in so far as this can be done in a single chapter, may 
be expressed somewhat as follows : To-day the labor organ- 
izations of America are playing a role in the history of civiliza- 
tion, the importance of which can be scarcely overestimated ; 
for they are among the foremost of our educational agencies, 
ranking next to our churches and public schools in their in- 
fluence upon the culture of the masses. They counteract to a 
large extent the evil and stupefying influences of the division 
of labor in our modern system of production ; finally they 
reach and elevate large classes mentally, morally, and spirit- 
ually, who can be moved in no other manner. It is first 
necessary for me to state what I understand by education. 
I do not mean simply what can be learned out of books ; 
still less what is acquired at schools. I mean something far 
larger, which in hides both books and schools, and much 
besides ; I mean what the Germans might perhaps express 
by JBildung, — the entire development of a man in all his 
relations, social, individual, religious, ethical, and political. 
Whatever in trades-unions or labor organizations in any way 
makes men larger men, educates them in the truest sense, 
and comes within the scope of this chapter on the educa- 
tional value of trades-unions and labor organizations. It is 
certain that laborers have been strongly impressed with the 



EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 121 

educational value of organizations, and have united with that 
aim directly in view from the earliest period of their existence. 
The ancient guilds show strongly marked educational char- 
acteristics, as do the friendly societies of one kind and an- 
other which prepared the way for the trades-unions. The 
Workingmen's Institute of Brighton, England, formed in 
1848, serves as an illustration of the general truth. It was 
intended to provide the workingmen of that town with the 
means of mental and of moral improvement. Mental im- 
provement was, in the publications of the Institute, sepa- 
rated into two divisions, — the information of the intellect 
and the elevation of the taste. It was, therefore, very 
appropriate for Rev. Frederick W. Robertson to choose 
" Education " as the subject of the opening address which 
he was invited to deliver before the Institute. 

At a still earlier date, education was valued by the work- 
ing classes in the United States, and they repudiated with 
some bitterness the idea that mental cultivation would injure 
those in their walk of life. The New England Association 
of Farmers, Mechanics, and other Workingmen, in their 
address to workingmen, issued in 1832, briefly recapitulated 
the evils for which a remedy was sought ; and among these 
evils, as will be remembered from a previous chapter, were 
the following : " An illiberal opinion of the worth and rights 
of the laboring classes ; an unjust estimation of their moral, 
intellectual, and physical powers ; an unwise misapprehen- 
sion of the effects which would result from the cultivation of 
their minds and the improvement of their condition. " 

It should further be borne in mind that those in this coun- 
try who were known as friends of the workingmen were at 
the same time active in educational movements. Mention 
has already been made of Horace Mann, William Ellery 
Channing, and Robert Rantoul, and it is worthy of notice 



122 



THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 



that the Swiss educational reformer, Pestalozzi, is esteemed 
highly, even by the radicals, among organized laborers. 1 It 
is instructive to look through Mr. Channing's writings on the 
labor problem, as they indicate the drift of reform and of 
constructive effort at this early period, — and we may well 
say early period, for fifty years ago is a very early period in 
the labor movement, and so rapid is the progress of events, 
that even twenty years ago might be called an early period. 
Mr. Channing's most celebrated addresses on social topics 
were entitled, "Self-Culture," and "X)n the Elevation of the 
Laboring Classes," — self-culture, education, you observe. 
And now let us see what Mr. Channing had to say under the 
more general head of elevation of the laboring classes. The 
positive part of his argument is summed up by himself in 
these words, " I was obliged by my narrow limits to confine 
myself chiefly to the consideration of the intellectual eleva- 
tion which the laborer is to propose ; though in treating this 
topic, I showed the moral, religious, social improvements 
which enter into his true dignity. I observed that the 
laborer was to be a student, a thinker, an intellectual man 
as well as a laborer." 

The efforts of the early friends of labor were largely, 
perhaps chiefly, directed to public schools as an educa- 
tional agency, and there can be no doubt that our public- 
school system is in part the result of labor agitation. Our 
whole educational system in the United States is more 
largely due to the desire to benefit the masses than to any 
other single cause. At every period in our history, public 
school questions have been labor questions or labor meas- 
ures. And when I say this, I do not exclude our universi- 
ties. What, then, has the labor movement brought us ? I 

1 The New Yorker Volksgeitung calls him "the first social demo, 
crat." See Wochenblatt, 7th November, 1885. 



EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 123 

reply first of all : it has been one of the chief causes which 
have brought us a public-school system, — a public-school 
system which has already accomplished incalculable good, 
and promises greater benefits in the future, as it is further 
developed. But our public-school system is attacked by 
men whose political wisdom and sense of social justice I 
prefer not to characterize in terms which would seem to 
me fitting. Where shall we find guardians against assaults 
on our public schools ? Where shall we find those who will 
not only protect what we have, but help us forward in new 
achievements in education, particularly by means of public 
schools. To both questions I reply, in our labor organi- 
zations. All over the world labor organizations are sup- 
porting and bearing forward every popular educational 
movement. Let me take an illustration from our own South, 
where such a force as I have been describing is precisely 
what is needed. There is in Tennessee a State organization 
of trades-unions and labor societies, called the State Labor 
Union, which adopted the following resolutions at its annual 
meeting, held in the fall of 1885. "Resolved, That, as 
the question of education is of vital importance to us and 
the whole people, we request our representatives in Con- 
gress to use their influence in securing national aid to 
education. 

" Resolved, That we demand such revision of the public- 
school system of the State as will make possible the build- 
ing of comfortable schoolhouses and the maintenance of 
schools in each district at least seven months in the year. 
That none but competent teachers be employed, and that 
they be paid a salary equal to the importance of their work 
as public educators." It is my opinion that those in Con- 
gress and out of Congress who have favored the Blair Bill 
would have been more likely to succeed in their endeavor if 



124 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

they had ere this sought the co-operation of the masses as 
represented in our labor organizations. 1 

We have heard much of the educational value of our free 
political institutions, for it is a favorite theme with writers on 
political science, and it has been said that therein lay their 
chief value rather than in the establishment of a better gov- 
ernment. Labor organizations are beneficial in the same 
way, and I am much inclined to think to a higher degree 
among those who belong to them. They are schools of 
political science. Men meet in tl>em and discuss questions 
of politics and economics in order to ascertain their bearing 
on the interests of the masses. They feel that their posi- 

1 Even those who oppose the Blair Bill — and there are sincere 
friends of public schools among them — may rejoice in the sentiments 
which this reveals. I know that one occasionally hears sneering re- 
marks about high schools and colleges, uttered by workingmen and 
their leaders. This found illustration recently when an editor of a 
labor paper condemned the authorities of a Western city because they 
paid the teachers in the high school fifty dollars a month, which, it was 
urged, was more than an honest mechanic could earn ; such utterances, 
however, are rarely heard, and I am inclined to think less frequently 
heard than formerly. It is not often that those who speak thus, 
voice the real sentiments of the men who bear forward the labor 
movement, and give direction and tone to it. One hears such remarks 
from demagogues, but they appeal chiefly, so far as my observation 
goes, to those who are above the laboring class in economic rank, to 
the little bourgeoisie, as the French would say, the class of small 
traders and producers. Take my own city as an illustration : I believe 
those most inclined to disparage the Johns Hopkins University are 
found among the employers on a small scale, the men with corner 
groceries, the prosperous retail liquor-dealers, the owners of two or 
three little houses acquired by toil so unremitting that no time has 
been left for the cultivation of the higher faculties; also among others 
possessed of still larger fortunes who have recently acquired them, 
and with them that love of money which renders them impenetrable to 
all ideas not in some way connected with the M almighty dollar." 



EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 125 

tion in life is not what they would have it, and desiring to 
improve themselves they seek to ascertain what course they 
can take as citizens of a free republic to advance the wel- 
fare of the people. This involves a wide range of topics, 
and leads the more active spirits among them to increase 
their fund of information and sharpen their intellects by the 
study of the works of economists and publicists. I know a 
poor mechanic in Detroit who, unable to buy new books, has, 
as he expresses it, " nosed around old book-stores " asd col- 
lected a library of three hundred volumes. " Yet," writes he, 
" I had to take the money from bodily comforts and put it 
into books." The Journeymen Bricklayers* Union of Balti- 
more has expended one thousand dollars on a library which 
includes such books as "Shakespeare," "Chambers' Ency- 
clopaedia," "Dickens" and "Bulwer" complete, the Waver- 
ley novels, Scharfs "History of Maryland," and "Webster's 
Unabridged Dictionary." In fact, I can say that I was 
astonished on inspection to find the excellent selection 
which these artisans had made, for they had bought all the 
books themselves, having persistently refused to receive 
presents. I could wish that the young ladies in our best 
society were always as judicious in the choice of books. 
With annual dues of four dollars, these bricklayers impose a 
yearly tax of one dollar on each member for the support of 
the library. The desire to do something to ameliorate the 
condition of the masses, and the belief that a way has been 
found to accomplish this, is a source of new vigor and life to 
many who are weary and heavy-laden. A Baltimore physi- 
cian was in my office a short time ago, who told me that 
a few years before he scarcely felt that life was worth living ; 
but when he was in the depths he chanced to read Henry 
George's " Progress and Poverty," which filled him with new 
hope, and had proved a source of satisfaction ever since. 



126 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

He now felt there was work in the world worthy of a man 
because it might result in material improvement in the lot of 
mankind. Now, one may object to Henry George's teach- 
ings, — as I do most decidedly, — and yet rejoice at the good 
which his works are doing in stimulating the thoughts and 
promoting the generous aspirations of the people. It would, 
indeed, not be an easy matter to over-estimate the educa- 
tional value of that one work " Progress and Poverty." A 
not inconsiderable part of the wholesome growth of interest 
in economics is due to its publication. 

Let me give you another illustration of what the labor 
agitation is doing for the intellectual training of many work- 

ingmen. When in C , in December last, it suddenly 

entered my mind that I had received a letter of inquiry 
about my " Recent American Socialism " — from a barber of 

that city, and as I crossed S Street it came to me that 

his place of business was No. — S Street, and his name 

Joseph . So I sought out the socialistic or rather 

anarchistic barber. If this were a story, it would be ne- 
cessary to describe the shop as low and dingy, and full of the 
smoke of vile tobacco. I should further be obliged to com- 
ment on a general air of unthrift emphasized by the indo- 
lent appearance and untidy clothing of the laborer who 
indulged in speculations of an anarchist's paradise. Truth, 
however, compels me to state that the general appearance 
of the shop impressed me with a sense of such prosperity as 
is represented by a snug little balance at a banker's, while 
I could find no fault with the manner in which the barber 
kept either himself or his shop. The man is a German, 
but speaks English pretty well, and has translated from 
the German into the English, and publishes translations in 
the papers occasionally. I have received two or three arti- 
cles translated by him from Lassalle. I learned from him — 






EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 127 

it was told in an apologetic kind of manner — that he 
was able to do better "in this line some time ago/' but 
that of late his skill in translation into English is not what 
it was, because he has been giving so much attention to the 
Spanish language. 

In addition to questions of public policy, the laborers in 
their organizations are bound to consider what they can do 
collectively and individually as laborers apart from govern- 
ment, to improve their situation. All this keeps a whole 
multitude of questions before every labor society, and as 
many minds involve many opinions, there is abundant oppor- 
tunity for vigorous debate. It ought not to be necessary to 
add that this is excellent training in a practical school of 
politics. Again, the trades-unions and labor organizations 
are popular schools of oratory in which workingmen learn to 
express their thoughts and to address a public audience, and 
that often with dignity and composure, while their press fur- 
nishes opportunity for the development of any latent literary 
talent among them. I will quote the testimony of several 
trades-unionists on this point, the educational value of 
their societies, that it may be seen how different laborers 
replied to the question, " Has your membership in any 
trades-union, or workingmen's or workingwomen's society, 
made you more skilful and useful in your work or profited 
you educationally, morally, or socially, and how has it af- 
fected the habits of members in regard to temperance ? " 
and I may say here that I am glad to give the exact words 
of the workingmen, and thus let them tell their own story. 1 

1 The testimony is taken from the first Report of the Massachusetts 
Bureau of Statistics of Labor. The replies are given by numbers, as 
many laborers who appeared before the bureau or sent answers to 
questions, feared that they would lose their positions if their names 
should become known. 



123 THE LAB OR MO VEMENT. 

No. 38 : "The association with which I am connected has 
not been in existence long, but for the time there has been 
a marked change made in the condition of the members 
who attend regularly, both mentally and socially.' ' 

No. 33: "I am a member of a Labor Reform Club . . . 
Connection with such societies tends to elevate the mind 
in every particular.' ' 

No. 20, — a bootmaker : " The influence of the Crispin 
order has had the effect to benefit the morals, health, 
wealth, and happiness of its members." 

No. 18 : "The trade-union has profited me educationally 
and socially." 

No. 72, — sub-overseer of weaving : "I belong to the 
Ten-Hour League. It has been useful to me only in a gen- 
eral way thus far, as aiding my general culture." 

These replies are typical. The Knights of Labor and 
other labor organizations are beginning to turn their atten- 
tion more than heretofore to the formation of libraries for 
their members. Something has been done in this direction, 
and more will be done in the future. The following quota- 
tion from the Labor Record^ of Williamsport, Pa., is an 
indication of the spirit at work among the Knights of Labor. 
"At the present time, when workingmen are taking a more 
active part in public affairs than ever before in the his- 
tory of the nation, it is necessary to the proper exercise of 
the organized power they possess that they become ac- 
quainted with the fundamental principles upon which all 
legislation should be based. Realizing this, and with a view 
of supplying such information, the Knights of Labor of this 
city have started a library of works on economical subjects, 
and for which they respectfully solicit contributions of all 
suitable works. Contributions will be received at this office." 
1 Issue of April 17, 1886. 



EDUCATIONAL VALVE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 129 

The strongest of the organizations which have come under 
our notice, the Patrons of Husbandry, has done perhaps as 
much as any other to advance the cause of education among 
its members. 

A few quotations will show how largely educational in its 
character has been the work of the Patrons of Husbandry, 
and the first of them will be taken from an address by Hon. 
D. Wyatt, of Aiken, South Carolina, on " The Grange, its 
Origin, Progress, and Educational Purposes." " Postmasters 
from all the States informed us that the Order had greatly 
increased the bulk of their mails. And one said that ' there 
are now thirty newspapers taken at this office, whilst there 
was but one taken before the establishment of the Grange in 
this vicinity. ' And one clergyman wrote that, ' Since the 
introduction of the Grange I have seen a remarkable change 
in the walk and conversation of my flock; they are more 
careful in their dress and general appearance, and are read- 
ing more.' From every quarter came the Grange call for 
books, and much money was invested for select libraries for . 
Granges in many of the States." 

The following quotations are from the " Journal of Pro- 
ceedings " for 1882 : "We aim to make the daily lives of 
men and women better and nobler and truer and holier and 
happier ; to encourage education, social and moral culture." 

" All Grange meetings should be enlivened with singing 
and music, and time given for social recreation. . . . The 
greetings of brothers and sisters should be so cordial that 
the humblest members, though poor, and burdened with 
cares, should be made to feel and know that they are not 
doomed to toil, through weary life, isolated and alone, 
without friends, sympathy, society, or hope of advancement, 
but that they are members of a great brotherhood." 

The following are from the "Journal" for 1885. The 



130 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

" Master " from Pennsylvania reports : " In many of the 
older Granges libraries have been started." From Wisconsin 
comes the similar report, " A majority (of the granges) own 
halls, and several have fine libraries.' ' 

These quotations might be multiplied ad libitum. In the 
next place, labor organizations are perhaps the chief power, 
in this country, making for temperance. While not pro- 
hibitionist organizations, 1 — this indeed could hardly be 
expected, — they are scarcely with exception temperance 
societies, nor is it difficult to see h^w this has come about. 
Meeting together, they naturally discuss their sources of 
weakness and strength. They inquire how it is that brother 
A. has a cottage all paid for, while brother B. is always out 
at the heels ; how it is that C.'s wife has a deposit at the 
savings bank, and a beaming countenance, while D.'s wife, 
poor thing, is sad, dejected, and always in want ; how it is 
that a certain society is composed of manly, independent 
fellows, capable of holding their own in every conflict with 
their employer, while another local union is composed of 
weak and submissive cravens. It is not surprising that the 
evils of intemperance should thus be frequently brought to 
their notice; and, as the labor unions are a vast army 
under the restraints of discipline, a great force is brought to 
bear on them to urge them to temperance in all things, and 
this is likely to have greater weight because it comes, not 
from professional temperance advocates, but has sprung up 

1 Yet the number of teetotalers among them is surprising when one 
remembers that our laboring classes are chiefly foreigners, or born of 
foreign parents, and that total abstinence is scarcely known outside of 
America. It is not a very safe thing for a man to draw a conclusion 
in a matter like this from his own limited observations; but I am 
inclined to think that there are quite as many total abstainers among 
the laborers as among our higher social classes. 



1 



EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 131 

spontaneously in their own ranks. I will give a few illustra- 
tions. No one may be a member of the Knights of Labor 
who is in any way connected with the sale of intoxicating 
liquors. Section I. of Article XXIII. of the Constitution of 
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen of North America 
reads as follows : " Any member dealing in, or in any way 
connected with, the sale of intoxicating liquors, shall, unless 
he withdraws, be expelled. Any member found guilty of 
drunkenness shall be suspended for the first offence. A 
repetition shall be punished by expulsion; and under no 
circumstances shall a member so expelled be re-instated 
before the lapse of one year." 

Window Glass Workers' Assembly, No. 300, has adopted 
this rule : " Any member causing this place to stand idle on 
account of drink shall be fined as follows. First offence, 
$5. Each subsequent offence, $10. . . . Any member 
losing work through drink shall for the first offence be fined 
$1, and reprimanded in open meeting of the Preceptory; 
for the second offence, $2.50; and for each subsequent 
offence shall be fined $5." 

Among the fines imposed by the Journeymen Bricklayers' 
Protective Association of Philadelphia are the following : 
" For attending a meeting in an intoxicated condition, $1 ; 
and for attending a funeral in such a condition, $5." A 
first floor in their hall on Market Street was vacant when I 
visited the place. A liquor dealer had offered them a large 
rental for it, but they declared that they would under no 
circumstances allow intoxicating drinks to be sold in the 
building. 

It is noteworthy that the fine is higher when the works 
are stopped and the employer injured than when a man 
simply injures himself. The numerous speakers before labor 
audiences frequently emphasize the advantages of temper- 



132 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 






ance, and strong language is used by those who are called 
in disparagement " professional agitators." At the last 
annual convention of the Knights of Labor, the General 
Assembly, as they call it, Mr. Powderly, the general master- 
workman, or head of the order, said, " If a man given to the 
use of strong drink and a serpent applied for admission to 
the order, I would vote for the serpent in preference to 
the drunkard." And Mr. Trevellick, or Dick Trevellick, as 
he is popularly called, in an address to the laborers, shouts, 
" Stop your cursed drinking ! " In a " Notice," calling a 
meeting of the " mule-spinners of New Bedford," occurs 
this sentence : " We are pleased to see a large number of 
our trade embracing sobriety ; it is very inconsistent for us 
to complain about the tyranny of corporations and the hard- 
ships we have to endure while we submit to be slaves to a 
bad and injurious habit." "But," a sincere reader may inter- 
pose, "the practice of the working classes does not seem 
to harmonize with their principles, for I have always sup- 
posed intemperance to be their peculiar curse. They do 
not seem to have made much progress in temperance." 

Many think this, but only those who are not acquainted 
with the facts of the case ; for when these are borne in mind, 
the relatively small amount of intemperance among American 
workingmen becomes a souVce of astonishment. 

First, we should never forget the temptation to intemper- 
ance which lies in the character of the toil of many laborers. 
Long hours are regarded by competent anthorities as a 
cause which predisposes to the use of intoxicants. Another 
equally strong provocation may be found in exposure to the 
sudden and severe variations of our climate. Take the 
case of street-car drivers, exposed one season to a tempera- 
ture ioo degrees above zero, and in another to one, ten, 
fifteen, and even twenty degrees below zero. 



EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 133 

The strain of work by the side of rapidly moving machines 
on the nervous system is another predisposing cause to intem- 
perance which has attracted serious attention. Mr. Robert 
Howard, the secretary of the Mule Spinners' Organization, and 
senator in the Legislature of Massachusetts, gave this testi- 
mony about the spinners in Fall River before the Blair Com- 
mittee of the United States Senate : * "It is dreadful to see 
those girls, stripped almost to the skin, wearing only a kind 
of loose wrapper, and running like a race-horse from the be- 
ginning to the end of the day ; and I can perceive that it is 
bringing about both a moral and physical decay in them. . . . 
I must say that I have noticed that the hard, slavish, over- 
work is driving these girls into the saloons after they leave 
the mills in the evenings ; and you might as well try to 
deprive them of their suppers ; after they leave the mills, 
you will see them going into the saloons, looking scared and 
ashamed, and trying to go in without any one seeing them, 
— good respectable girls, too ; but they come out so tired 
and so thirsty and so exhausted, especially in the summer 
months, from working along steadily from hour to hour, and 
breathing the noxious effluvia from the grease, and other 
ingredients that are used in the mills ; and they are so 
exhausted when the time comes to quit, that you will find 
all their thoughts are concentrated on something to drink to 
allay their thirst. . . . You may know, as well as I can tell 
you, how a man must feel in this hot weather, following such 
an occupation as that. He just feels no manhood about 
him. He can only take a glass of beer to stimulate him, to 
give him a little appetite so that he may eat, in order to be 
able to go through his daily drudgery. . . . Drinking is 
most prevalent among the working people where the hours 
of labpr are Jong." 

1 See Report, Vol. I. pp. 647-649. 



134 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Once more it must be remembered that many of our 
working people have been brought up in Europe to look 
upon the use of stimulants as much a matter of course as 
tea or coffee in this country ; and they do not realize that 
what is comparatively harmless in the climate of Europe 
may be ruinous in ours. 

The low and degraded character of the worst class of 
emigrants should not be forgotten. If Europe sends us 
splendid men and women, she also sends us her scum to 
degrade our working people. Take, for example, a large 
proportion of those laborers brought into our country under 
contract contrary to the law, but with the full knowledge of 
those authorities whose duty it is to enforce the law. 

When I consider all these circumstances, the temperance 
of the masses in America is a marvel to me. Much, too 
much, remains to be done in the field of temperance 
reform, but let us not fail to give credit to those who have 
already accomplished great things. Have not newspapers, 
by no means too friendly to laborers, again and again had 
occasion to remark the almost uniform temperance of labor- 
ers in their parades, demonstrations, and appearances before 
the public in strikes ? There can be no doubt about this ; 
it has occurred in all parts of the country. 

The locomotive engineers furnish another illustration. 
Formerly they were so much given to intoxication, that it 
was not unusual to see in their cab a kind of iron contriv- 
ance to help them to hold on when " tipsy." Now that has 
disappeared ; they are a temperate body of men, and to-day 
travel in the United States is safer than it would be had not 
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers been formed. 
This is one example of many which I could give. I will 
close this topic with a characteristic quotation from The 
Trades Union, of Atchison, Kansas. "The most deadly 



EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 135 

blow ever given to King Alcohol is in that declaration of 
the Knights of Labor which proscribes any liquor dealer for 
membership in the Order. It is doing more to put an end 
to drunkenness, and to bring the rum traffic under the ban, 
than all the laws of Kansas or speeches of St. John ever 
did." 

There are many remaining points of importance, but I 
shall be obliged to pass over them hastily ; while it will be 
necessary to omit altogether some noteworthy aspects of our 
topic. 

The social culture which laborers derive from their orderly 
gathering together is an excellent feature of the labor move- 
ment. From this point of view the trades societies appear 
as schools, in which true politeness and even grace of man- 
ner are taught ; and on an extended tour in the summer of 
1885, I must confess that I was much impressed with the 
courtesy and good manners of the many labor leaders I met ; 
and it may be well to state that these labor leaders, ordina- 
rily considered idle demagogues, were all mechanics, — 
mechanics chosen by other mechanics to represent them. 
A personal experience is of some importance in this con- 
nection. Last summer I visited the Central Labor Union 
of New York, and was pleased to observe that when one 
member allowed himself the use of the word " damned," 
to express his indignation, there instantly arose from various 
parts of the hall, cries of " I object to that language ! " The 
speaker was called to order by the Chairman, and told that 
profanity was against their rules. The bricklayers of Phila- 
delphia impose a fine of fifty cents for using profane lan- 
guage. 1 Great advance will still be made along this line 
of polite manners in the future. 

1 How many rich men's clubs exclude the use of intoxicants, and 
impose fines for profanity? 



136 THE LABOR MOVEMENT, 

Social gatherings bring laborers and their families out of 
their isolation, and furnish them with agreeable and con- 
genial companionship. One of the laborers in the Mil- 
waukee Trades Assembly used these words in describing the 
social advantages which that union had brought him : 
"After working more than twelve years in this city, five 
years ago I hardly knew any craftsmen except those work- 
ing with me in the same shop. To-day I am personally 
acquainted with four-fifths of all the men engaged at my 
trade, and everybody seems to know me. This fact I 
appreciate more than almost anything connected with my 
social position." 

The laboring classes, through their unions, are learning 
discipline, self-restraint, and the methods of united action, 
and are also discovering whom they can trust, finding out 
the necessity of uniting great confidence in leaders with 
strict control of them, and with the aid of their press are 
building up a great market for the products of co-operative 
enterprise. 

Thus the labor movement is preparing the way for that 
goal which has for many years been the ideal of the best 
thinkers on labor problems, — the union of capital and labor 
in the same hands, in grand, wide-reaching, co-operative 
enterprises, which shall embrace the masses. Formerly it 
was an argument in favor of slavery that in that way only 
could labor and capital be united in the same hands and 
disastrous conflicts be prevented ; but up from the people 
there comes a voice, crying, "We will show you a more 
excellent way." The movement has already begun, — co- 
operative enterprises, productive and distributive, are spring- 
ing up in every part of the land. Co-operation is urged by 
a united labor press, and labor societies set it before the 
masses as an ultimate goal. One of the objects of the 



EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 137 

Knights of Labor is stated thus in their official declaration : 
" To establish co-operative institutions, such as will tend to 
supersede the wage system by the introduction of a co-oper- 
ative industrial system." One of the organs of the artisan 
class, The A?nerican Glass Worker, states one of its objects 
as follows : " The establishment of co-operative funds, with 
a view of each union finally engaging in co-operative enter- 
prises, productive and distributive, disposing of the products, 
and supplying, at first cost, every article consumed by its 
members." In another issue of the same paper, I find these 
words, at the head of an article on co-operation : " Co- 
operation must be the result of our labor organizations.' ' 

The disastrous termination of most co-operative enter- 
prises in the past in the United States is a well-known 
fact, but the failure has not been by any means universal, 
and a state of things is being built up, where the causes of 
failure will disappear after a time ; also, alas, after many 
more failures. 

But our picture will not be complete until we have shown 
the still wider ethical significance of the labor-movement. 
First, there is rational ground to hope that it will in the end 
introduce a higher tone into our political life, though it has 
scarcely done so up to the present time. The labor 
organizations have certain practical aims in politics, often 
very definite, and they will hereafter attempt to gain these 
by sending honest men to our legislatures to represent them. 
Year by year they are becoming increasingly restive under 
the attempted control of the professional politician ; in many 
cases they have entirely emancipated themselves from party 
prejudice, and have already learned that only sharp, vigor- 
ous, honest, and independent political action can ever bring 
them as a class anything worth having. There is said to be 
quite a strong feeling among the Knights of Labor in favor 



138 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

of civil service reform ; and it can never gain a firm foothold 
in this country until it is supported by a strong popular sen- 
timent. Second, it is worthy of notice that those in the 
organizations call one another brother and sister, and that 
many of the unions are called brotherhoods ; as, for exam- 
ple, The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen of North 
America, The Grand International Brotherhood of Loco- 
motive Engineers, The Brotherhood of Carpenters and 
Joiners of America. 

The labor movement, as the fpcts would indicate, is the 
strongest force outside the Christian Church making for the 
practical recognition of human brotherhood ; and it is note- 
worthy that, at a time when the churches have generally dis- 
carded brother and sister as a customary form of address, 
the trades-unions and labor organizations have adopted the 
habit. And it is not a mere form. It is shown in good 
offices and sacrifices for one another in a thousand ways 
every day, and it is not confined to those of one nation. It 
reaches over the civilized world ; and the word international 
as a part of the title of many unions, and the fact that their 
membership is international, are quite as significant as they 
appear to be at first sight. Since the labor movement be- 
came powerful, the laborers of Germany, France, America, 
and England, and of other countries, too, feel that they are 
members of one great family, and that they must work 
together for their complete emancipation. The most re- 
markable illustration of the internationalism of the labor 
movement was the meeting of representatives of the glass- 
workers of six nations, in Pittsburgh, in July, 1885, to form 
the Universal Federation of Glass Workers. In the pream- 
ble, it is stated to be their purpose " To extend their Feder- 
ation to all sections of the globe, until its membership shall 
embrace every man engaged in our trades.' ' 






WCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANLZATLONS. 139 

The laborers are the most thorough-going peace-men to 
found, and I am often inclined to think that they are the 
ly large class who really and truly desire peace between 
tions, the abandonment of armies, the conversion of spears 
to pruning-hooks, and swords into ploughshares. At the 
me of the Franco-German war, German laborers alone pro- 
sted against the slaughter of their French brothers ; at the 
beginning of our late war, American laborers met in conven- 
tion, to protest against hostilities between the sections ; and 
in the fall of 1885 the veterans of the Union and Confederate 
armies among the Knights of Labor formed an organization 
called The Gray and the Blue of the Knights of Labor, 
and took the motto, "Capital divided, labor unites us." Its 
object, says John Swintorts Paper, " is to teach the toilers 
who make up the armies of the world, that in peace, not 
in war, is the worker's emancipation." I sincerely believe 
that the time is not so far distant as one might think, when 
organized labor will force the governments of earth to sub- 
stitute arbitration for war, will compel them to live peaceably, 
each with the other, to devote their forces to the fruitful 
pursuit of art, industry, and science, and in a vast interna- 
tional parliament to lay the foundations of a federated world 
state. But even this is not the whole of their high mission 
of peace ; for they are, in our South, bringing about an am- 
icable understanding between black and white, since it is 
1 necessary that they should unite and act in harmony to 
accomplish their common ends. Thus they bring an elevat- 
ing influence to bear upon the more ignorant blacks, and 
help to solve the vexed problem of race in the United States. 
Strange, is it not ? that the despised trades-union and labor 
organizations should have been chosen to perform this high 
duty of conciliation ! But hath not God ever called the 
lowly to the most exalted missions, and hath he not ever 
called the foolish to confound the wise ? 



1*0 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

When we consider, then, the educational value of trades- 
unions and labor organizations, and remember that this does 
not exhaust the whole of their benefit, we cannot be greatly 
surprised that Thorold Rogers, the most careful student of 
English labor, should even exaggerate their importance and 
wish to restrict the right of suffrage so as to include only 
those who belong to some organization. His words are as 
follows : — 

"Three processes have been adopted by the working 
classes, each of which has had a^vast, and should have an 
increasing, influence in bettering the condition of labor and 
making the problem of dealing with individual distress, how- 
ever caused, easier and readier. They should be viewed by 
statesmen with unqualified favor, and be treated by working- 
men as the instruments by which they can regain and consol- 
idate the best interests of labor. They are trades-unionism, 
or, as I prefer to call it, labor partnership ; co-operation, or the 
combination in the same individuals of the function of labor 
and capital ; and benefit associations, or the machinery of a 
mutual insurance society. So important do I conceive 
these aids to the material, intellectual, and moral elevation 
of the working classes to be, that I would, even at the risk 
of being thought reactionary, limit the privileges of citizen- 
ship, the franchise, parliamentary and local, to those, and 
those only, who entered into these three guilds — the guild 
of labor, the guild of production and trade, and the guild of 
mutual help. Nor do I think it extravagant to believe that 
were those associations rendered general, and finally uni- 
versal, the social problems which distress all and alarm 
many would ultimately arrive at a happy solution." 



CHAPTER VI. 

OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 

THERE are several topics, as yet not treated, which 
could well fill several chapters, but it is possible to 
take only a glance at them, if this book is to be kept within 
that limit of size desirable for present purposes. 

The first of these subjects which must receive at least a 
brief treatment, if we are to take anything like a complete 
survey of the field, is the weighty one of insurance. It is 
evident that insurance of various kinds is an indispensable 
condition of that economic security for the laboring classes 
which is so desirable for their own happiness and for 
the welfare of society, and which must form part of the 
solution of the labor problem. Savings banks, useful as 
they are in their own sphere, cannot provide the security 
which the laboring classes need ; for accidents or death may 
befall the workingman in the beginning of his career before 
he has had opportunity to save a large sum, or he may die 
after long illness has exhausted his resources. So with other 
cases which might be enumerated ; and it is certain that the 
possibilities of the savings bank, great as they are, have been 
exaggerated. Insurance is still more important, and when 
sufficiently developed may provide for nearly every contin- 
gency in the life of the laborer. The kinds of insurance 
needed are enumerated as follows by Professor Brentano : 1 

1 This enumeration is quoted from my article on the Baltimore and 
Ohio Employees' Relief Association in Harper's Weekly for July 4, 
1885. 



142 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

i. insurance to defray expenses of education of children 
in case of death; 2. insurance to defray expenses of sup- 
port during old age ; 3. insurance to provide for burial ; 4. 
for a period of inability to labor on account of accident or 
injury; 5. for a time of illness; and 6. for periods of en- 
forced idleness, due to lack of demand for labor. Some of 
these can be provided satisfactorily only through labor 
organizations ; notably is this the case with the last three 
kinds, for laborers alone are able to exercise the requisite 
control and prevent deception and/ fraud. 

English trades-unions have done most in the direction of 
insurance for laborers, but American labor organizations are 
improving in this respect, and are already accomplishing an 
amount of good thereby, of which the general public knows 
almost nothing. The reason why the relief and benefit 
features of our labor organizations have not been still fur- 
ther developed is due to the character of our economic life. 
First, the migration of population has prevented their 
growth, for they flourish best where people are well ac- 
quainted with one another, have acquired mutual confi- 
dence, and have a strong feeling of " solidarity " ; second, 
the rapid change in economic rank and in occupation have 
worked adversely. Few have been willing to look forward 
to the position of laborer as permanent, and the general 
desire has been rather to escape from it than to improve 
that position. People have been willing to provide for 
immediate want, for present contingencies, but not for more 
remote ones like disability due to old age. Trades-unions 
have not been old and stable enough to give the laborer 
a feeling of reasonable probability that he would receive 
return in a distant period for present contributions. Again, 
the trades-union has not been sufficiently extended so that 
a laborer could always continue his connection in every part 






OTHER ASPECTS OE LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 143 

of the country. Finally, trades-unions are becoming less 
suitable insurance societies than formerly. With the con- 
tinual danger facing artisans of degradation to the ranks of 
unskilled labor or a change of occupation, the need of the 
times is for something larger which will provide for all these 
contingencies ; also for a great society which can transact 
business on a larger scale and thus at a smaller cost. Here 
as elsewhere the Knights of Labor, or if that should fail, 
some similar organization which would inevitably take its 
place, can well supplement the work of the trades-unions. 

While we have not yet reached the point of annual con- 
gresses of all trades-unions and complete statistics which 
would enable us in America as in England to tell exactly 
what our labor organizations are doing for insurance, there 
are many data at hand which are valuable, and it can safely 
be said that the expenditures for the relief of suffering 
amount to millions of dollars annually, preventing thou- 
sands from the degradation which attends the receipt of 
public charity, and lightening effectually the burdens of the 
tax-payer. The Grand International Brotherhood of Loco- 
motive Engineers provides for the permanent disability or 
death of members by a Locomotive Engineers* Mutual Life 
Insurance Association. This, a special department of the 
Brotherhood and membership, is voluntary. The total mem- 
bership on Sept. 30, 1885, was 4,252, and some time since, 
the sum paid out was nearly $12,000,000. The amount paid 
on one claim is now limited to $3,000. In addition to this, 
subordinate divisions extend relief to members and their 
families. When any brother dies, a committee is appointed 
" to inquire as to the pecuniary situation of the deceased,' ' 
and in case of want it is the duty of the division to assist 
the family " by all honorable and reasonable means," and in 
particular the children must not be allowed to suffer or be 



144 THE LABOR MOVEMENT 

neglected. The care and protection are to be extended so 
long as needed. " Widows are to be assisted in like man- 
ner, also a sick or disabled brother." 

Every one of the fifteen thousand members of the Brother- 
hood of Locomotive Firemen is insured for $1,500, paid to 
his heirs in case of death, to himself in case of permanent 
disability. Since the organization of the order in Decem- 
ber, 1873, it had in October, 1885, paid out $315,764. 
This sum is far from presenting an adequate idea of what 
the Brotherhood is doing now, for 7 its membership was small 
and the relief afforded comparatively insignificant in its early 
years. During the month of August, 1885, it paid claims to 
the amount of $18,000, and in the following month to the 
amount of $22,500. 

Since Jan. 1, 1883, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and 
Joiners of America has paid benefits. These are now 
$250 in case of death or disability, and $50 in case of the 
death of a wife. The benefits paid during the year ending 
Aug. 1, 1885, amounted to $7,500. The assistance given 
by local unions must be added, to get a complete idea 
of the aid rendered, and this holds true with regard to 
other organizations. It is not improbable that local and 
voluntary assistance in the case of all the unions amounts to 
a greater sum than that which appears in the annual reports 
of the national bodies. The Philadelphia Journeymen Brick- 
layers' Protective Association pays a benefit of $125 on the 
death of a member, and $75 on the death of a wife. The 
accident benefit is $25. This does not seem like much to 
a person of means, but it saves many from a potter's grave. 

The Deutsch Amerikanische Typographia pays a weekly 
sick-benefit of $5, which is reduced to $3 after the receipt 
of $300, and ceases after the receipt of $500. The death- 
benefit is $200 for a member, $25 for a wife ; for enforced 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, 145 

idleness the benefit is #5 a week, but it must not exceed 
#60 a year. Members receive railway fare when in search 
of work. 

The Cigar Makers' International Union pays a sick benefit 
of $5 a week, provided such sickness is not caused by " in- 
temperance, debauchery, or other immoral conduct " — a 
condition common to nearly all the unions. The amount in 
sick benefits for the fiscal year ending in November, 1882, 
was $16,643.73. It pays a death benefit of $40, and as 
already stated, pays from $15,000 to $20,000 a year to aid 
members to secure work. 

The Knights of Labor have an insurance department, and 
the h^irs of a member of this department receive from $500 
to $1,000, according to contribution. This feature of the 
order is new and the membership is comparatively small at 
present. The local assemblies aid needy members and dis- 
burse in this way from $100,000 to $200,000 annually. 

The International Furniture Workers' Union insures 
tools, and has, besides, the usual relief and benefit features. 
These are typical facts, and it is needless to continue their 
enumeration in this place. There ought to be in every 
State a properly qualified official to examine accounts of all 
insurance associations of every kind or description, because 
only in this way can the insured be protected, and also 
because the officers themselves are rarely able to make the 
complicated calculations necessary to enable them to ascer- 
tain the real standing of an insurance society. A great deal 
has been done in England to extend the usefulness of such 
associations by the appointment of a Registrar of Friendly 
Societies to give them aid of this kind. 1 

1 "These orders, to their great credit . . . have submitted the 
whole of their rates of contributions — their incomings and outgoings 
— to actuaries named or approved by the Registrar, and have adopted 



146 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Arbitration and strikes are important topics in any treat- 
ment of labor organizations. First, it should be known, 
that arbitration is impossible without labor organizations. 
Capital is combined and is managed by a few persons even 
in the largest establishments. Take the case of a railway 
corporation. The capital may be owned by one thousand 
different persons, but it is massed together and all its owners, 
as a rule, treat with the railway employers through a single 
person. Capital is one of the factors of production ; labor 
is another, and it also must be massed together to stand on 
an equal footing, and this can be effected only by organiza- 
tion. As the thousand capitalists choose one representative, 
the ten thousand laborers must choose a representative of 
labor. To ask a single laborer, representing a ten thou- 
sandth part of the labor factor, to place himself against a 
man who represents all the combined capital, is as absurd 
as to place a boy before an express train, and expect him 
to stop its progress. As Hon. Abram S. Hewett, as every 
one knows, a wealthy employer, has so well said, it is only 
after labor is organized that the contending parties are in 
a condition to treat. " The great result is, that capital is 
ready to discuss. It is not to be disguised, that, until labor 
presented itself in such an attitude as to compel a hearing, 
capital was not willing to listen, but now it does listen. 
The results already attained are full of encouragement.' ,1 

The difficulties in the way of arbitration have come chiefly 
from the side of employers, for it is a rare thing when 
laborers refuse to arbitrate their difficulties with their em- 
ployers. Few cases of such refusal have ever come under 

the table thus certified as sufficient to secure the payment of all sums 
insured." Trades-Unionism in England, by Thomas Hughes, Century 
Magazine, May, 1884. 

1 Paper read before the Church Congress in Cincinnati, Oct. 18, 1878. 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 147 

my notice. The pride and arrogance of men who do not 
like to meet their employees on an equal footing have been 
the chief obstacles to peaceful settlement of disputes be- 
tween capital and labor. But when this is said, two things 
must be borne in mind. There have always been excep- 
tions to the rule. Laborers have had no more sincere, de- 
voted, self-sacrificing friends than some of their employers, 
and they frequently make a serious mistake in under-estimat- 
ing the number of their industrial masters, who really wish 
them well. There are surprisingly many who are able even 
to perceive that labor, as connected with a human person- 
ality, is superior to capital, that all laws and courts must 
ultimately recognize this, and that labor ought to be given 
an ever larger and larger measure of rulership, as it shows 
a fitness for it, until it attains its goal, — complete sover- 
eignty. 1 

On the other hand, it should never be supposed, that by 
nature employers represent a morally inferior type of men. 
They simply exhibit the traits of our common human nature, 
and the employee who is most bitter against his employer 
might be still worse in the same place. The lesson of this 
is the lesson of all history \ human nature is too weak to be 
entrusted with despotic power in an industrial system or 
anywhere else. Laborers will be ground into the dust if 
they cannot protect themselves by combination. The fol- 
lowing quotations show the spirit of the American labor 
organizations with respect to arbitration. 

" Whenever a dispute arises between an employer, or em- 

1 " I affirm it as my conviction that class laws, placing capital above 
labor, are more dangerous to the Republic at this hour than chattel 
slavery in the days of its haughtiest supremacy. Labor is prior to and 
above capital, and deserves a much higher consideration. 

"Abraham Lincoln." 



148 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

ployers and members of this brotherhood, the members 
shall lay the matter before the local union, which shall 
appoint an arbitration committee to adjust the difficulty; 
then, if said committee cannot settle the dispute, the mat- 
ter shall be referred to the union." Constitution of the 
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, Article IX., Sec- 
tion i. 

"The International Typographical Union recommends 
that when disputes arise between subordinate unions and 
employers which cannot be adjusted after conference between 
the parties at issue, the matter be then settled by arbitra- 
tion.' ' And in another place the constitution of this body 
contains these words : " Recognizing strikes as detrimental 
to the best interests of the craft, it directs subordinate 
unions not to order a strike until every possible effort has 
been made to settle the difficulty by arbitration." 

Among the standing Resolutions of the Iron Moulders' 
Union is this : " Resolved, That strikes are not beneficial 
to our organization, and that it would be to our interest to 
evade as much as possible all strikes, and not to resort to 
them until all other means at our disposal are exhausted." 

One of the aims of the Knights of Labor, as found in 
their Declaration of Principles, is : " To persuade all em- 
ployers to agree to arbitrate all differences which may arise 
between them and their employees, in order that the bonds 
of sympathy between them may be strengthened, and that 
strikes may be rendered unnecessary." 

It cannot be difficult to explain the different attitudes of 
labor leaders and capital leaders in the matter of arbitration. 
Intelligent laborers all dread a strike, as they know well what 
intense suffering it is likely to produce in their own ranks, 
but rich capitalists have no dread of actual want. Apart 
from this the position of laborers is not such as to cultivate 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 149 

the vices of pride and arrogance. They feel that a conces- 
sion is made to them when employers consent to arbitrate. 
To the one it is often a gratification of pride, to the other 
it is a humiliation of false pride. An illustration may be 
found in the New Testament. I suppose Christ did not 
mean to imply that by nature the rich were worse than the 
poor, when he said that it was harder for a camel to pass 
through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to be 
saved, but that their position made it so, and that it was 
difficult for them to learn of social inferiors, like a carpen- 
ter's son and fishermen. 

The question may then be asked, if labor organizations 
are so much in favor of arbitration and so much opposed 
to strikes, Why do strikes occur so often? First of all, it 
should be known that all strikes are not foolish. As Mill 
says, they are a necessary part of our industrial system. 
Laborers are forced at times to hold their commodity, labor, 
back from the market in order to receive for it the price 
which the state of the labor market justifies. Employers 
rarely offer an advance voluntarily, for they are like pur- 
chasers of other commodities. Does my reader offer seven- 
teen dollars for a garment when the price asked is only 
sixteen dollars? There are capitalists who recognize the 
peculiarities of the commodity labor, and voluntarily offer 
more than the laborers force from them. Several cases like 
this have occurred recently, and the labor press, it should 
be acknowledged, has been very frank in the recognition of 
this generous treatment. Still they are the exception, and 
as a rule the laborers are bound to hold themselves in readi- 
ness to strike and withdraw their labor from the market, if 
they are to play their part in the regulation of supply and 
demand. 

Now, two things are to be noticed : First, the very 



150 THE LABOR MOVEMENT*. 

readiness to strike, and the ability to strike, secure more 
favorable terms than would otherwise be possible, and also 
more respectful treatment; second, the common assertion 
that strikes are always failures is by no means true. When 
laborers are told this, they know from experience that it is 
false, and turn away in impatience even from the really good 
advice which may accompany the assertion. In 1883, 
Mr. Adolph Strasser, the President of the Cigar Makers' 
International Union, testified before the United States Sen- 
ate committee on labor and capital^ that there had then 
been 2 362 strikes among the cigar-makers, recognized by 
his organization, of which 204 were successful, 137 lost, 12 
compromised, and 10 then in progress. The expenditures for 
the strikes amounted to $286,444.67, while the gain to the 
members of the union amounted to $1,800,000 per annum, 
and the reductions prevented to at least $500,000 per annum. 
Prof. Sartorius von Waltershausen has made a study of the 
strikes in the United States from Nov. 1, 1879, t0 Oct. 1, 
1880. Of the 121 for an increase of wages, 80 were won 
and 19 compromised; of the 26 against a reduction of 
wages, 21 were lost, 3 compromised, and 2 won. 3 It is 
seen that strikes fail sometimes, and are sometimes won ; 
but in both cases there is serious loss to somebody, and it 
would be a gain to everybody if the result of the strike, 
whatever it may be, could be reached without the strike. 
To arrive at this conclusion by peaceful methods is the office 

1 The testimony before this committee, known as the Blair Com- 
mittee, has been issued in four volumes, and contains much matter 
valuable for any student of the labor problem. 

2 August, 1883. 

3 See Jahrbiicher fur National Okonomie und Statistik, Siebenter 
Band, Viertes und funftes Hept. (10 Nov., 1883.) 

Compare also an article on "The Statistics of Strikes," published 
in BradstreeVsy April 25, 1885. 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 151 

of arbitration, and wherever honestly tried, it has proved 
eminently successful. 1 But arbitration cannot be satisfac- 
torily conducted without labor organizations, as has been 
seen, and these are also required to educate the laborers for 
arbitration. The labor leaders are more intelligent than 
the mass of laborers, and their position often enables them 
to see when a strike must prove a failure, and to prevent it. 
The workings of labor organizations do still more to prevent 
foolish strikes. 2 Take the Cigar Makers' International Union 
as typical. It requires the votes of two-thirds of all the 
local unions to authorize a strike. Everywhere there is at 
least some formality required to obtain the approval and 
support of an entire organization. The matter is referred 
first to some one not present on the ground, and who can 
look at the trouble in a calmer, more impartial manner. 
While this is going on, the passions of the discontented and 
angry have an opportunity to subside, and when the un- 
favorable decision arrives, they continue work or resume 
work, and the difficulty is past. 

Often it will happen that the officers of the organization 
will be able to adjust the difficulty with employers to the 
satisfaction of all parties, and that with the exchange of a 
few words. This is especially apt to be the case whenever 
or wherever, as in England, for example, the unions are so 
strong that the employers do not dare to refuse to treat with 
the officials of the orders. One reason why so many strikes 
do occur in America is because the unions are not so strong 
with us as in England, and on the one hand are unable to force 
recognition from the employers, on the other, to control their 

1 Permanent and fairly conducted boards of arbitration have, in 
places, nearly abolished strikes. 

2 And, as John Stuart Mill says, a strike is wrong whenever it is 
foolish. 



152 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

members. The trouble comes chiefly from unorganized or 
imperfectly organized laborers. 

Two things receive no public attention : the great num- 
ber of employers who never have any difficulty with their 
employees, 1 and contemplated strikes which never occur. 
When one considers the peculiar circumstances which 
surround the American laboring class, the heterogeneous 
elements which enter into its composition, and the bad 
influence of its baser and more ignorant members, its com- 
paratively peaceful career is a justjzause of surprise and 
gratification. The records of our labor organizations show 
the suppression of a vast number of strikes ; it is safe to 
say of the great majority contemplated. Mr. Strasser, in 
the testimony to which reference has already been made, 
stated that the Cigar Makers' International Union had pre- 
vented over two hundred strikes in the preceding three years. 
The whole machinery of the Knights of Labor is designed to 
prevent strikes. The Knights made a mistake in their ex- 
cessive zeal to prevent strikes, for no authority was given 
the main body to support and encourage strikes ; conse- 
quently no authority to control and prevent them. 

The despised leaders of trades-unions are, as a rule, far 
more conservative than the mass of their followers. They 
do not urge organized labor on, as is erroneously supposed, 
but are always trying to hold it back ; and many of the fool- 
ish strikes occur, not at their instigation, but in spite of 
their best efforts. The disastrous Hocking Valley strike 
happened against the advice of the leaders. 2 Time and 

1 It would be well that they should receive attention. Of late too 
much notice has been directed to employers in a chronic state of diffi- 
culty with their laborers. 

2 A gentleman in a position to know, and whose name, could it be 
mentioned, would at once command the confidence of my readers, writes 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 153 

time again does it happen that the rank and file refuse to 
accept settlements effected with their employers by their 
leaders. If the general public only knew the anarchy which 
would follow the suppression of the labor organization, they 
would thank God for their existence. The wild incendiar- 
ism of roving bands of discontented laborers in Belgium 
this last spring, and the excesses of unorganized labor dur- 
ing the first half of this century in England, may give one 
some faint idea of our fate were the labor organizations to 
disappear. 

"But," insists the reader, "you have given a bright 
picture of labor organizations. I have always been taught 
to consider them creations of hell-inspired men. Is there 
no dark side to the picture? " 

Yes, there is a dark side ; but the good that these associ- 
ations do so far outweighs the evil, that it is only just to call 
attention first and chiefly to their beneficial character, espe- 
cially so long as their real nature is not understood. 

There are three causes of opposition to labor organiza- 
tions. One is ancient prejudice. Some men are so consti- 
tuted that they cannot shake off a prejudice of years' 
standing, no matter what the evidence of their error. An- 
other is the violent partisanship of some who have been 
brought into conflict with them. The third, and most com- 
mon, is ignorance ; and this will be removed by information. 
The experience of Thorold Rogers is a common one. In 
his "Work and Wages," he says of trades-unions : "I con- 
fess to having at one time viewed them suspiciously ; but a 
long study of the history of labor has convinced me that 

me : u The strike was forced by the ignorant mob of miners against the 
strenuous opposition of their own leaders. When it was once begun, 
it was a hard and bitter fight, and some cruel and unjustifiable things 
were done on both sides." 



154 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

they are not only the best friends of the workmen, but the 
best agency for the employer and the public ; and that to 
the extension of these associations political economists and 
statesmen must look for the solution of some of the most 
pressing and the most difficult problems of our own time." 
This has been my experience, and Rev. Dr. T. Edwin 
Brown, who has written an excellent work on the labor 
problem, confesses that it has been his. Their cause is so 
strong, that for a man in a non-partisan position to oppose 
them is prima facie evidence of ignorance. Among politi- 
cal economists it is no longer necessary to vindicate their- 
usefulness, for they almost unanimously favor them. 

It is true that workingmen have been guilty of violence, 
but it seems to be an established fact that the most of those 
who transgress the laws are outside of the organizations. 
The Commissioner of Labor of the New York Bureau of 
Statistics of Labor says, in the Third Annual Report of the 
Bureau, " Most of the mobs which have created trouble in 
this State in former years were composed of disorganized 
or newly organized laborers. The lawless classes are rarely 
union men, and often not workingmen at all." The men- 
tion of " newly organized laborers," suggests the explanation 
that there are evils incident to the infancy of organizations 
which they soon outgrow. New unions are inexperienced, 
and apt to overrate their own strength ; also to betray that 
same insolence which so often accompanies newly acquired 
power, whether due to wealth, combination, or office. 1 It is 
a standing rule among old trades-unionists for a union man 

1 The latest troubles in New York with the organization of street- 
car conductors and drivers would not have occurred in the case 
of an old union. The trouble in Chicago with the switchmen, it is 
said, was against the advice of their organization, which is also a new 
and imperfect union. 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, 155 

never to boast of the strength back of him, or to presume 
upon it ; but new men too often forget this injunction, and 
give their employers just cause for indignation. In a few 
places labor organizations have indeed become possessed of 
despotic power, and they are no more fit than others to 
exercise unlimited government. 1 

Once more : trades-unions have, as a rule, grown up out 
of coalitions during a strike, and these first days have been 
abnormal ; yet it is only during the abnormal period of a 
struggle that public attention is called to them. " The gen- 
eral public knows little and seems to care less for the quiet, 
steady, beneficent influences which these unions are exerting 
upon workingmen." 2 So strongly do the Knights of Labor 
feel on this subject, that it is one of their rules not to take 
in men who are on strike, although against the will of the 
leaders, it has at times been violated. 3 Bad men get into 
labor organizations and struggle for the ascendency. Some- 
times, though rarely, they gain it, and do sad havoc, 
injuring the cause of labor for years. Union men make 
mistakes, and even very intelligent men are not infallible as 
guides. Men, too, have often committed crimes and been 
guilty of folly for which they alone, as individuals, were to 
blame, yet which have been attributed to them as union men. 

On this general subject I will quote the testimony of four 
clergymen of standing, who have given more or less thought 
to the labor problems, and have examined the character of 
labor organizations. Rev. Dr. John Hall says, " There is a 

'' 1 Did I not have in mind the government of the czar, I should 
say less fit than those, who have been taught, by education and social 
position, to exercise a higher degree of self-restraint. 

2 Quoted from Rev. T. Edwin Brown, D.D. 

3 A charter was recently revoked because the local assembly con- 
sisted of men who were organized during a strike. 



156 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

wide-spread suspicion of trades-unions as being selfishly 
managed by paid agents for fomenting discord between the 
employer and the employed. When a continued strike 
embarrasses a contractor and throws the workers and their 
families on the benevolence of their fellows, it is natural to 
look to the evil on the surface and forget the underlying 
good which is contemplated. In the nature of the case, 
union effort by working people admits of easy vindication." 
The following quotation is from Rev. Dr. T. Edwin Brown, 
of Providence : — ^ 

" When we remember the history of the Christian Church, the 
history of humanity, and by what terrific throes good evolves 
itself out of and through evil, we must not be too hard upon 
workingmen. Are we perfect? Do we commit no blunders? 
Are we never carried away by passion ? Are we always able to 
balance with perfect accuracy the conflicting interests of our- 
selves and our fellows? . . . Remember how labor has been 
oppressed. Remember that in the early days of the modern indus- 
trial revolution, labor was being reduced to slavery. Remember 
that these modern labor organizations, made necessary by bad 
conditions, and made possible by the very causes which, unhin- 
dered, made the conditions bad, were repressed with passionate 
violence and obstructed by malignant watchfulness, so long as 
repression and obstruction were possible. Remember that a 
thousand evil prophecies have been uttered against them which 
have never been fulfilled. Remember that not until 1824 could 
these unions exist openly, and that not until 1871 did they have 
a fully legalized and corporate existence in England, while in 
this country they have never been adequately organized and 
protected, and regulated by law. Remember that the majority of 
those who composed these unions were men ignorant by neces- 
sity, suspicious, as hunted animals are suspicious ; distrustful of 
advice, because so often deceived by advice, with many violent 
and vicious men among them. And then, with all the facts in 
mind, ask yourselves whether it is wonderful that there have been 






OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, 157 

mistakes, mischiefs, crimes, much folly in principle, and much 
wrong in fact. Is not the wonder rather that there have not 
been many more of these characteristics which arouse our com- 
plaints? There have been unwise restrictions, tyrannical regula- 
tions, vast aggressions, and hindrances to intelligent labor and to 
best productions. Yes ! But these are incidental. Many of the 
petty tyrannies, which are quoted even now as characteristic of 
trades-unionism, belong to the past. They have been outgrown. 
Many others will be outgrown. The workingmen, in spite of all 
the blunders that have been made, ought to be proud of their 
organized history. I, as a man, sharing their common humanity, 
am proud of their history on their behalf." 

The third quotation consists of the conclusion of a sermon 
by Rev. Thos. K. Beecher, D.D., of Elmira, and is so admir- 
able and so much to the point that room must be made for 
it, despite its length : — 

" The Knights of Labor, having gathered, if you please, one 
hundred or five thousand names on their lists, must of necessity 
have gathered in ignorance, passion, lawlessness, and insubordi- 
nation. Members of that church have misbehaved and will mis- 
behave. I doubt not that there is great mortification and travail 
of spirit over these disgraceful infidelities to the principles of the 
Order. Now, as a ' peacemaker,' I affirm that if any man is a 
good Mason he will never be a drunkard or a fornicator. Yet I 
have known Masons of high degree who were infamous because 
of those vices. Nevertheless, I still speak of a good Mason. I 
know that if a man is a good Methodist he will be a man of 
prayer, enthusiasm, generosity, and hope, of sanctification ; yet 
I have known Methodists of high degree that were none of those 
things. I know that a minister of the gospel, if he fulfil his 
ordination vows, will be truly a reverend man ; trustworthy by 
day or by night, bearing about him the dying of the Lord Jesus, 
that the life also of Christ, filling and overflowing, may give life to 
an unbelieving world. Yet I have known ministers first and last 
that have fallen into every vice of the criminal calendar. Never- 
theless, I believe in ministers. 



158 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

" Brethren, I appeal to you to make yourselves habitually ac- 
quainted with the best in every church, sect, party, or order. 
Cultivate in yourselves large-mindedness, fair-mindedness, and a 
charity that believe th in all things, endure th all things, hopeth 
all things. Why, brethren ! there is not upon earth so holy a 
society founded by the Creator himself as the family. And there 
is not a society upon earth in which I have found infamies more 
noisome, and agonies more poignant, than have come to my 
knowledge in the relation of husband and wife, parent and 
child. 

" We must not denounce the Masons, nor the Methodists, nor 
the Presbyterians, nor the Democrats, nor the Republicans, nor 
the Communists, nor any other aggregation of our fellow-men in 
the lump. There is evil in them all, there is good in them 
all, and always will be, until the harvest, which is the end 
of the world. Then shall God send forth his reapers, which 
are the angels, and gather the bad Masons, and bad Methodists, 
and bad Presbyterians, and bad Democrats, and bad Republicans, 
and bad Knights of Labor, and bad Socialists, and bind them 
into bundles to burn them, that the heavenly city be no more 
plagued by their vices nor scared by their threats ; and gather 
the good Masons, and good Presbyterians, and good Democrats, 
and good Knights of Labor, and good Communists, and good 
Socialists, and good capitalists, to enjoy together, for the first 
time since the stars began their watch, the counsels of an un- 
broken unity, and the growth and glories of an eternal co-opera- 
tion. 

" Judge nothing before the time. There is one that judgeth 
all, even God. Let us be careful what we feel, and more care- 
ful still as to what we say, as regards our fellow-citizens, in 
these restless days. Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to 
wrath. The wrath of men will never work out the righteousness 
of God nor the salvation of society. Let us study to be quiet, to 
mind our own business, and work with our own hands the thing 
that is good, that we may have to give to them who suffer much ; 
thus shall we earn the benediction : Blessed are the peacemakers, 
for they shall be called the sons of God." 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 159 

A clergyman of New England, and a Ph.D. of a Massa- 
chusetts college, accompanies a description of the Knights 
of Labor with these words : " The actual is doubtless below 
the ideal. The two differ, however, not so much as the 
ideal church of Christ, and the church as actually realized 
among men." One precaution which should not be for- 
gotten by those who would judge the laborers honestly 
is this : you get only one side of the case in press de- 
spatches. Could you know both sides, your opinion would 
frequently be quite different about alleged misdoings of 
laborers. He who would know both sides must take a 
labor paper. 

One undoubted error of most of the labor leaders, in 
my opinion, consists in their adhesion to the doctrine 
that an inflation of the currency, by the issue of larger 
quantities of paper money, is a good thing, but as one of 
them said, they " are not pushing that now." Their 
acceptance of this doctrine is easily explained by an 
examination of the financial history of the United States 
during the past twenty-five years. Contraction of the cur- 
rency doubtless caused some suffering ; but fifty years ago 
laborers complained bitterly on account of the over issue of 
paper money. It is in such matters they need the aid of 
scholarship, for the ordinary man errs in his generalizations 
because he bases them on too narrow a range of observa- 
tion. This is also an illustration of the fact that no one 
class is large enough for exclusive rulership. The welfare of 
society requires the active co-operation of all the members 
of the social organism. 

The dictation of trades-unions is a favorite theme. It is 
oftenest brought forward as an offence by those who are 
unwilling to recognize the right of the laborer to a voice in 
the management of the commodity which he supplies, labor, 



160 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

and in the management of which he is so vitally interested. 
The non-partisan fails to see any reason why the laborer has 
not the right to say, Under such and such conditions I will 
offer my commodity ; under others I will withhold it ; even 
should those conditions include the right to select his com- 
panions. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the 
laborer may make a foolish use of his rights, and it is cer- 
tain that he too often does make such a use. Some of the 
most intelligent trades-unionists think the refusal to work 
with a non-union man is indefensible and injurious to the 
cause of labor. It is the office of arbitration to help deter- 
mine what are wise and beneficial, and what are foolish and 
injurious conditions both for the buyer and seller of labor. 

The surrender of personal liberty is often regarded as a 
condition of membership in a trades-union, but this is little 
more than a fiction in the case of any well-managed labor 
organization. Those who furnish capital place its manage- 
ment in the hands of a few, those who furnish labor do so, 
though to far less extent. If an indiscreet choice is made 
by either party the result may prove disastrous, and a change 
should be made as soon as possible. What Mr. Trant says 
of a strike 1 is true of most affairs of trades-unions. "The 
idea that a strike depends upon the ipse dixit of a paid 
agitator, and that if the men were to vote by ballot on the 
question, they would never consent to a strike, is conceived 
by those only who do not know what a trade-union is. In 
most cases a strike is the result of action taken by the men 
themselves in each district, the executive having more power 
to prevent a strike than to initiate one." 2 And what the 
Rev. Mr. Kaufmann says is as true of this country as Eng- 

1 In his excellent little work, "Trade-Unions." Kegan, Paul, 
French & Co., London, 1884. 

2 Members of unions often vote by a show of hands. It would be 
better to introduce the secret ballot universally. 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 161 

land : " I have given the subject a great deal of attention, 
and feel convinced that where the employers have right on 
their side, in the large majority of cases, the so-called dema- 
gogues or professional agitators have little power in provok- 
ing a quarrel about the raising or reduction of wages." 1 

Some people seem to believe that laborers work peace- 
fully and contentedly until a mischievous agitator comes 
along and stirs them up, and creates unreasonable dissatis- 
faction. All this is pure fiction. 

There are demagogues, it is true, and these are danger- 
ous ; but they are not the men who are usually mentioned 
as such in the newspapers. They are generally politicians 
who mislead the masses with lying lips which utter flatteries 
and vain promises. Men may be divided into three classes, 
with respect to their attitude toward the masses. The 
lowest class is composed of dishonest men who delude them 
for their own devilish ends. That class constitutes a goodly 
element among our politicians, and has as large a member- 
ship in America as in any other country. The second class 
ranks a little above this. It is composed of men who scorn 
the arts of the vulgar politician, and will not degrade them- 
selves by courting men whom they inwardly despise. Corio- 
lanus, as portrayed by Shakespeare, was a high type of this 
class, which is, in America, a large and influential one. The 
third and highest class is composed of the noblest speci- 
mens of the human race. Men of this class seek the masses 
for no ignoble ends, but that they may do good to those who 
need their help. They are Christ-like men who are drawn 
to those beneath them in their intellectual, ethical, and 
social natures by an all-embracing love for humanity. These 
men are a nation's salvation. This third class is small, as 
yet, in our land, but happily it is a growing one. 

1 See his " Sermons and Lectures to Theological Students," 



162 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

One danger is, clearly, that the demagogue may get con- 
trol of the labor movement with all its vast potentialities 
for good or evil ; but this will be averted if those Americans 
who profess to be guided by principles of Christian ethics 
do their duty in the present crisis in our history. It can- 
not be averted by any attempt to suppress trades-unions; 
on the contrary, an endeavor to crush them is the greatest 
danger of all which we have to face. As Thomas Hughes 
has said, " Whatever danger the advancing wave may seem 
to threaten existing institutions, arisen from attempts to block 
the channel." 1 There is no power in America at the disposal 
of the employing class which can crush labor organizations. 
Their opponents may double the police, strengthen the 
militia, secure control of the legislative authority, put the 
judges under their thumbs, and buy up every paper in 
the United States, and their efforts will still be in vain. 
Kings and emperors and parliaments have been trying just 
such experiments at intervals for six hundred years, and have 
not succeeded. The first fundamental fact to be grasped is 
that the labor organizations are with us, and will remain 
with us. There never will be peace until they receive full 
recognition. Employers who really mean well should seek, 
as many of them are doing, to work through them and to 
develop everything that is good in them. 

1 Trade- Unionism in England. — Century Magazine, May, 1884. 
In the same article occurs this passage, which ought to be reassuring 
to Americans at the present time. In speaking about trades-unions in 
England in 1 851, he says: "The press echoed the alarm of the em- 
ployers, and denounced these combinations in unmeasured terms. The 
trade of the country would be ruined by those great unions of the 
working classes, controlled by irresponsible councils, whose authority 
was blindly obeyed, and which were composed of men whose profession 
was agitation, and whose living depended upon fostering disputes." 
Talk of that kind is now a thing of the past in England. 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 163 

Still another danger has been brought to public attention 
recently, and it seems to me one well calculated to excite 
alarm. It is, that unscrupulous speculators may attempt to 
use our labor organizations to raise and depress railway 
stocks and other property for their own ends. It will 
require vigilance to avert such a calamity. 

There is a great deal of talk about the expenses of the 
unions, and there seems to be an impression that they are 
devouring the earnings of our artisans and mechanics. The 
truth is, the expenses of the organizations are light during 
the time of peace, and contest is only an exception in the 
history of the most beligerent. 1 Take salaries, for example. 
From 1867 to 1885 the highest annual cost per man for 
salaries of officers of the International Typographical Union 
was only eighteen cents, while the lowest was but seven 
cents. Take, for another example, the contributions of the 
Knights of Labor to their central body. They amount to 
six cents a quarter for each member. Of course contribu- 
tions for relief and benefit features, and other forms of 
mutual aid, and for strikes, when they occur, are much 
larger, though far smaller than most people imagine. When 
a labor organization is well managed, it yields a large return 
for all that it costs. One other fiction only must receive 
attention now, and that is the " fat places " in the organiza- 
tions. There are none ; no men work harder, perform 
more arduous duties, or duties requiring a higher order of 
intellect, for the same salaries, than the officers of the great 
labor organizations. Mr. Powderly receives $1,500 per 
annum ; Mr. Turner, the general secretary of the Knights 
of Labor, $1,200; the president of the Flint Glass-Workers 
is paid $1,100 a year. These are among the higher salaries. 

1 The Amalgamated Carpenters reported that during the year 
1883-84 not pne trade dispute occurred. 



164 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Some serve in union capacities without pay ; others receive 
$25 and $50 a year. 

One obstacle in the way of the growth of trades-unions in 
America has been that the abilities of their officers have so 
cften attracted the attention of capitalists who could pay 
higher salaries. Many of their best men have been lost to 
them in this manner. 

The great mass of men follow leaders. They may pro- 
test against the fact, but they do it all the same, for they 
cannot help it. Now who are the- natural leaders of the 
laboring classes ? Their industrial superiors ; and when we 
pass judgment on the employee, we are obliged to inquire 
what kind of an example has been set him by his employer. 
An examination of our social history reveals the fact that 
the laborers have been guilty of no offence for which they 
could not find a precedent in the conduct of unscrupulous 
employers. 1 The subject of violence to non-union men 
affords an example, and on this Professor Thorold Rogers 
comments as follows : " The violence which has character- 
ized the action of workingmen against those who abstain 
from their policy, compete against them for employment in 
a crisis, and, as they believe, selfishly profit by a process 
which they are too mean to assist, but from which they reap 
no small advantage, is indefensible and suicidal. But it has 
its parallel in the attitude of joint stock companies to inter- 
lopers, and in the devices by which traders have over and 
over again striven to ruin rivals who will not abide by trade 
customs, or even seek to be independent competitors against 
powerful agencies. I see no difference beyond the fact 
that law allows them, between the rattening of a Sheffield 
saw grinder, and the expedients by which in the committee 

1 For instance, the cutting of wires of telegraph and tearing up the 
track of railways by opposing companies. 



OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 165 

rooms of the House of Commons, railway directors seek to 
extinguish competition schemes. Men who have not had 
the refinements of education, and who are not practised in 
the arts of polite malignity, may be coarse and rude in the 
expedients which they adopt, but when the process is essen- 
tially the same, when the motive is practically identical, and 
the result is precisely equal, the manner is of no importance 
to the analyst of motives and conduct." 1 

American railway history has furnished employees with 
many examples of violence perpetrated by vast corporations ; 
and it can scarcely surprise the thoughtful man that the 
underling should take the lesson to heart and occasionally 
attempt violence on his own account. I myself have seen 
the property of one railway corporation seized by another 
without the slightest ground in right or justice, and it was so 
common and every day an occurrence that it attracted little 
attention. I am not aware that in all the United States a 
single editor thought it worth while to publish an editorial 
about it. Let me give another illustration in the concrete 
of the parallel between the conduct of the poorer and 
wealthier classes. We often hear it spoken of as something 
monstrous that trades-unions should establish rates of wages, 
and force their members to abide by them. 2 This is noth- 
ing peculiar to labor organizations. In a recent description 
of the New York Stock Exchange, we are told that even the 
offering to do business at less than the established rates " is 

1 Page 403-4 of " Work and Wages." 

2 It is commonly said that trades-unions establish a uniform rate for 
all. I think this rarely happens. They establish a minimum rate. The 
bricklayers of Philadelphia have a minimum rate of $3.50, but only the 
poorer bricklayers receive so little. Some receive $3.75, others $4.00, 
$4.25, and even $4.50. They also grant special permission to old ot 
infirm bricklayers to take less than #3.50. This is merely an example. 



166 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

punishable by expulsion from the exchange, and sale forth- 
with by the committee on admissions of the membership of 
the offender." If the reader wishes other parallels, let him 
go to the physicians among whom I have known one to be 
ostracised for cutting below the established rates. 

Finally, that terrible weapon of labor, the "boycott" 
found a precedent in the far more cruel black list which 
preceded it, in most cases caused it, and still continues its 
atrocities unrebuked. 1 Now the parallels are not in them- 
selves justification, but if the practice is wrong, they do prove 
chat our entire industrial society needs reformation, and that 
it is cruelly unjust to saddle all the blame on those who 
follow their natural leaders. 

Is the conclusion of all this that injustice must be met by 
injustice ? that the laborer should retaliate upon others the 
wrong he has suffered ? No, a thousand times no ! It 
would be madness. Love, not vengeance, is the law of the 
highest civilization for which we must strive, and in which 
alone it can ever be well with men. Violence never settles 
any question, and no question is ever settled until it reaches 
a righteous solution. 2 The conclusion of all that has been 
said is, then, this : We must never cease to strive to place 
our social and industrial institutions on the rocl^ foundation 
of righteousness ; for until we can find such a basis for 
them, we have reason to fear something terrible indeed, and 
that is the wrath of God. 

1 Harpei-'s Weekly has denounced it in as strong terms as the boy- 
cott, and it has been condemned by other journals, but it has generally 
been passed over in silence by the newspapers. 

2 So well established is this as an historical fact, that "The blood of 
the martyrs is the seed of the church " has passed into a proverb. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 

I. Distributive Co-operation. 

THE phrase, " competence to the purchaser," has been* 
used as the rallying cry of distributive co-operation. 
As generally practised, it is simply the union of consumers 
in order to obtain commodities of various kinds at reduced 
rates, and also to secure satisfactory guarantees of quality of 
goods and of honest dealing in general. Such a combina- 
tion of purchasers is in Germany appropriately called a 
Consumers' Union. Distributive co-operation assumes a 
multitude of forms. In some instances it means nothing 
more than a club, whose members obtain reduced rates by 
special agreement with certain regular dealers. This is the 
case with the Rochdale Co-operative Society of Washington, 
composed largely of clerks and government employees at 
the national capital. The dealers hope to indemnify them- 
selves by a larger trade and by the cash payments, which 
are a feature of the agreement between them and the Roch- 
dale Society.' A more frequent form of distributive co-oper- 
ation is seen in the co-operative store, managed entirely by 
the co-operative society at its own risk, and sharing profit 
or loss according to some equitable rule. One of the most 
brilliant examples of success achieved by co-operation of 
this kind is that of the Philadelphia Industrial Co-operative 
Society, of which more will be said presently. 



168 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

It may well be asked, Why should so much importance be 
attached to this simple business contrivance, by which men 
hope to effect small savings in their purchases ? Nor is a 
satisfactory answer always an easy matter. When there is 
nothing more to co-operation in distribution than that which 
appears at first sight, or when it is not undertaken with a 
view to subsequent industrial development, it merits less 
attention than it has received. Apart from its educational 
value, which is considerable, it is then at best simply an im- 
provement of not large proportions in the conduct of busi- 
ness. When not at its best, it is frequently a disastrous 
failure in an attempt to improve trade relations, and entails 
serious loss upon poor men, ill able to bear the burden. An 
example of the power which resides in a name is seen in the 
history of the Co-operative Dress Association, which failed 
in New York some three years ago. What was this Dress 
Association ? It consisted of a number of people of consid- 
erable means, many of them even wealthy, who hoped by 
combination to save a small sum in their bills for clothing. 
There was no special grievance of which they had to com- 
plain, for the retail merchants of New York were then, as 
now, alert and enterprising, willing to sell goods at a small 
advance above cost, and were not remiss in that polite con- 
sideration which customers may reasonably demand from 
those with whom they deal. Here the whole experiment 
began and ended. There was no reason why its existence 
should have attracted wide attention ; no reason why there 
should have been regret when, in spite of all the gratuitous 
advertising it received, it failed. 

It is important that one should enter upon the study of 
co-operation with clear ideas as to its true significance and 
its real worth, or intrinsic worthlessness, as the case may be. 
We have to do, it is generally supposed, with a radical re- 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 169 

form, whose aim is to elevate the masses, both in mind and 
body. Now, it is evident that an agreement of A, B, C, and 
D, all to trade with one man, in case he will sell them com- 
modities at ten per cent below the regular prices, is not an 
event of such significance as to justify the waste of any con- 
siderable emotional energy. Nor is there cause for excite- 
ment when X, Y, and Z determine to open a small retail store 
for their own benefit, with the desire to add the retailers' 
profit to the income they may derive from other sources. 
A recent writer proclaimed boastfully that co-operation 
meant business, and nothing more. If that is all, let us at 
once turn our attention to some more profitable and inter- 
esting topic. 

But that is not all. The aims of co-operation are as far- 
reaching as those of the social union. It contemplates, as 
has already been said, a complete, though peaceful, transfor- 
mation of society. 1 Co-operators, when worthy of the name, 
are firm in the conviction expressed for them by John Stuart 
Mill : — 

" That the industrial economy which divides society abso- 
lutely into two portions, the payers of wages and the re- 
ceivers of them, the first counted by thousands and the last 
by millions, is neither fit for nor capable of indefinite dura- 
tion ; and the possibility of changing this system for one of 
combination without dependence, and unity of interest in- 
stead of organized hostility, depends altogether upon the 
future developments of the partnership principle. " 

It is, then, from the standpoint of those who desire a 
transformation and an elevation of the masses, that we must 
pass judgment on co-operative enterprises. The argument, 
formerly much in vogue as a defence of slavery, that the 

1 This has always been the animating idea of the leaders of the co- 
operative movement in England. 



170 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

institution united harmoniously the interests of capital and 
labor, was of greater force than the friends of free labor 
were then willing to admit, as is proved by the chronic state 
of disturbed relations between employer and employed 
which has come upon us, and promises to remain with us 
for years to come. Co-operation admits the desirability 
of a union between capital and labor, but maintains that 
such a union can be accomplished by voluntary associa- 
tions among men, both for the purpose of production and 
distribution. _y 

Distributive co-operation is, then, but a small part of the 
problem whose solution presses upon us. Frequently it 
means no direct union of capital and labor, but carries with 
it a division of profits only between capital and the patrons 
of capital, in other words, the consumers. This is the rule 
in England, where the annual sales of the co-operative stores 
exceed in value one hundred millions of dollars. It happens 
rarely that the employees participate in the profits of trade, 
though it is now clearly seen that capital, labor, and custom 
should all share in the products of enterprises in proportion 
to the services they render \ and in isolated instances, as in 
the case of the great Scotch co-operative wholesale store, 
this principle prevails ; while the best leaders, those who 
have furnished the life-giving spirit, are endeavoring to ex- 
tend the application of co-operation until, in all its ramifica- 
tions, it reaches its logical outcome. 

Distributive co-operation is a school. It is a training 
which, it is hoped, will lead to better things. More than this 
is true. Distributive co-operation is a beginning. Ifitisever 
completely successful, it will only be as part of a co-operative 
system which embraces the industrial life of the people. The 
story of the origin, the progress, and the achievements of 
distributive co-operation in Great Britain has often been 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 17i 

told ; 1 but the history of the checkered career of distributive 
co-operation in America has never been penned. Much of 
it is already lost, and much survives only in the memory of 
the aged, who once, full of youth and generous enthusiasm, 
devoted themselves to the spread of co-operation. As Rev. 
Dr. Heber Newton has well said, " Co-operation awaits 
its Old Mortality, piously bent on rescuing from oblivion the 
fading characters of these living epitaphs.' ' This is not the 
place for a statistical paper, giving a catalogue of failures 
and successes. We are now concerned only with a general 
view, which must, however, be sufficiently accurate to enable 
us to form in our own minds some kind of a picture of the 
actual condition of things in the past and in the present. 

The history of distributive co-operation in the United 
States may be divided into two periods, each of nearly equal 
duration. The first begins about 1835 and extends to the 
time of the Civil War ; the second continues from the begin- 
ning of that event to the present. I have been able to dis- 
cover only two or three existing co-operative enterprises 
which may be traced back to the first period, — the Central 
Union of New Bedford, the Natick Protective Union, and a 
large store at Worcester are mentioned by Mr. George E. 
McNeill, of Boston. 

Mr. McNeill, a veteran in the labor-movement, has pre- 
pared a history of co-operation in Massachusetts, which was 
published in the Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of 
Statistics of Labor for 1877, and this is my chief source of 
information for co-operation in New England before that 
year. From this report we learn that co-operation was dis- 
cussed in Boston, in 1831, by the New England Association 
of Farmers and Mechanics • but the members of the com- 

1 A sketch of it, by the writer, may be found in the Congregation 
alist, of Boston, March 12, 1885. 



172 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

mittee appointed to consider the subject were able to agree 
upon no report, and no definite action was taken at that 
time. Several germs of co-operative effort are found be- 
tween 1 83 1 and 1845, but no accurate account of them was 
found by Mr. McNeill, nor have I been able to discover 
anything farther than what is stated by that gentleman; 
viz., that it was attempted to effect a saving by the pur- 
chase of goods in large quantities, to be broken up and dis- 
tributed at a slight advance above original cost, to meet 
expenses. The managers were unpaid, the interest was not 
maintained, and the stores soon failed, suspended operations, 
or passed into the possession of private parties. 

Whenever co-operation has in this country assumed large 
proportions, it has been connected with some trades-union 
or labor organization, and those societies which are to be 
specially borne in mind in this connection are the four fol- 
lowing; namely, the New England Protective Union, the 
Patrons of Husbandry, the Sovereigns of Industry, and the 
Knights of Labor. The New England Protective Union was 
formed in 1845, but then bore the 1 name, Workingmen's 
Protective Union, which it retained until 1849. A schism 
took place in the body in 1853, because one party in the 
Union thought that the purchasing agent for the co-operative 
stores had been unfairly deprived of his position, and they 
were unwilling either to await a peaceful and constitutional 
settlement of the difficulty, or to waive a personal question 
for the sake of the inestimable benefits of unity. The 
seceders formed an organization, called the American Pro- 
tective Union. 

A correct view of co-operation seems to have been general 
among the laborers at that time, for the following preamble 
and resolution were adopted at the convention of the New 
England Workingmen's Union, held in Fall River, in Sep- 
tember, 1845 : — 






CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 173 

" Whereas, All means of reform heretofore offered by the 
friends of social reform have failed to unite the producing 
classes, much less attract their attention, therefore, 

"Resolved, That protective charity and concert of action in 
the purchase of the necessaries of life are the only means to 
the end to obtain that union which will end in their ameliora- 
tion." 

The sentiments of the Workingmen's Protective Union 
were reported to agree in the main with those found at that 
same time in the constitution adopted at New York by the 
National Industrial Convention. The important thought that 
an economy of a few dollars a year in the purchase of com- 
modities was no way out of the difficulties of the laborers, 
but was valuable only as a preparation for something better, 
is brought out still more clearly in the following extract from 
a report by the committee on organization of industry, issued 
in 1849 : — 

" Brothers, shall we content ourselves with the miserable 
idea of merely saving a few dollars, and say we have found 
enough? Future generations, ay, the uprising generation is 
looking to us for nobler deeds. Shall we disappoint them ? 
No ! by all that is great and good, let us trust in the truth 
of organized industry. Time, undoubtedly, must intervene 
before great results can be expected to accrue from a work 
of this character. We must proceed from combined stores 
to combined shops, from combined shops to combined 
houses, to joint ownership in God's earth, the foundation that 
our edifice must stand upon." 

The resources of these laborers were small, but they began 
their work " with faith in God and the right," to use their 
words, and " the purchase of a box of soap and one-half 
box of tea." This humble beginning rapidly assumed larger 
and increasing proportions, until, in October, 1852, the 



174 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Union embraced 403 divisions, of which 167 reported a 
capital of #241,712, and 165 of these announced annual 
sales amounting to #1,696,825. The schism in 1853 
weakened the body, but the agent of the American Protec- 
tive Union claimed for the divisions comprising it, sales 
aggregating in value over nine and one-quarter millions of 
dollars in the seven years ending in 1859. 

It is not possible to tell what might have been the out- 
come of this co-operative movement had peace continued. 
As it was, the disturbed era of trie Civil War nearly anni- 
hilated it. Nor can it be difficult to see the causes which 
led to the destruction of the still tender plant. Men left 
their homes for the battlefield ; foreigners poured into 
New England towns and replaced the Americans in the 
shops ; while shareholders frequently became frightened at 
the state of trade, and gladly saw the entire enterprise pass 
into the hands of the storekeeper. 

Various minor efforts at co-operation during the following 
years must be passed over with a simple allusion to the fact 
of their existence. Such are the co-operative experiments 
connected with the Boston Labor Reform Association, which 
aimed at the " discharge of all useless middle-men ; " of the 
same character are the co-operative associations, productive 
and distributive, which were inaugurated by that once pow- 
erful, but short-lived, union of shoemakers called the 
Knights of Saint Crispin. 

The two co-operative movements of large proportions, 
next in order of time, are those set in motion by the Patrons 
of Husbandry, or Grangers, and the Sovereigns of Industry. 

The Sovereigns of Industry were a secret order, founded 
in Worcester, Mass., in the month of January, 1874, by 
William H. Earle. The first paragraph of the Declaration 
of Purposes reads as follows : 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 175 

" The order of the Sovereigns of Industry is an associa- 
tion of the industrial or laboring classes, without regard to 
race, sex, color, nationality, or occupation ; not founded for 
the purpose of waging any war of aggression upon any other 
class, or for fostering any antagonism of labor against capi- 
tal, or of arraying the poor against the rich ; but for mutual 
assistance in self-improvement and self-pro tection." 

The entire declaration breathes forth the same pacific 
intent which is likewise seen in the motto adopted for the 
official journal of the Sovereigns, the Sovereign Bulletin, 
namely, " Capital and Labor, Friends, not Enemies." In- 
deed it may be said that the extreme of good nature has 
been reached when this order promises to resist the organ- 
ized encroachments of monopolists only by such " wise and 
kindly measures " as it can command. While an entire 
re-organization of society seems to have been contemplated 
in a vague and general kind of way, the Declaration of 
Purposes directs attention chiefly to the advantages of co- 
operation in distribution, that is, in making purchases. The 
aim was to secure economy by the abolition of the middle- 
men, consisting of " speculator, broker, commission agent, 
wholesale dealer, jobber, and retailer," and also to teach the 
members of the order to avoid the disastrous and extrava- 
gant system of credit. 

The members in a town or district constituted a local 
council ; the local councils in a State formed a State coun- 
cil ; while the national council consisted of representatives 
of all the States. The president of the national council was 
the founder of the order, William H. Earle. 

Brilliant success accompanied the efforts of the promot- 
ers of the Sovereigns of Industry for a few years. Within 
four months there were thirty- three councils in Massachu- 
setts. One year later, the old Bay State claimed fifty-seven 



176 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

councils, with 3,564 members, and in 1877 ninety-eight 
councils, with an estimated membership of 10,000. The 
order extended into other states, and even reached the ter- 
ritories. Its chief strength, however, always remained in 
New England and the Middle States. The Sovereigns were 
well represented at Washington, where the national organ 
was published during the last period of its existence, but 
the order does not appear to have obtained a foot-hold in 
any more southern section of the country. 

The largest store belonged to the council at Springfield, 
Mass., which in 1875 built the "Sovereigns' Block," at a 
cost of $35,500. The hall was dedicated amid that jubila- 
tion which always marks an event thought to be the fore- 
runner of a new era. There is now a certain pathos in the 
high hopes expressed in the Address of Dedication, by 
President Earle. So much labor, such bright anticipations, 
such lofty aims ! Are they but a light to reveal the com- 
pleteness of the wreck? Let us not say this; the end is 
not yet ! 

The order continued to thrive until 1878, shortly after 
which a decline began, and dissolution was the fate of the 
Sovereigns in 1880. We may take the business of the former 
year as an indication of the field in trade once won by co- 
operation — then lost to the good cause. President Earle, 
in his address at the fourth annual session in Washington, 
stated that the store at Springfield led all the others with 
sales amounting to $119,000 for the preceding year, while 
the forty-five councils which sent in statements reported a 
trade of $750,000 during the last twelve months. About 
one-half failed to report. The profits were in many in- 
stances large, notably so in Worcester, where the returns on 
the capital invested in the Sovereigns' Co-operative Asso- 
ciation averaged sixty-five per cent per annum from April 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 177 

20, 1875, to Jan. 1, 1878. Many councils pursued co-opera- 
tion no further than it is to be found in the club-order sys- 
tem, and others entered into special agreements with regular 
dealers, whereby considerable discounts were received. 
Although the order failed in 1880, and co-operative enter- 
prises connected with an organization generally rise and fall 
with the particular society through which they came into 
existence, the careful student will doubtless still discover 
traces here and there, scattered throughout the length and 
breadth of the land, of what once bid fair to be a powerful 
movement. An occasional survivor, like the Rochdale 
Society of Washington, still continues its existence, alone 
and isolated, like a stranded mariner. 

The well-known organization of farmers, called the Pa- 
trons of Husbandry, or, more commonly, Grangers, achieved 
grand results in co-operation, chiefly distributive. It has 
been claimed that co-operation saved its members twelve 
millions of dollars in one year. The high-water mark seems 
to have been reached about 1876, when the Patrons had 
five " steamboat or packet lines, thirty-two grain elevators 
and twenty-two warehouses for storing goods." The mem- 
bership of the order rapidly increased to a million, or there- 
abouts, in the first ten years of its existence, but then de- 
clined. Of late, new life and vigor have evidently been 
infused into the Patrons of Husbandry, and it is not im- 
probable that their numbers exceed half a million, while 
there are over a million who have been members of the 
Grange, and to-day stand to a greater or less extent under 
the influence of its ideas. 

The secretary of the National Grange, Mr. John Trimble, 
kindly sends me these lines in reply to my request for exact 
statistics : 

" This office has no record of the strength of the order, 



178 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

each State grange keeping its own record. I have no record 
of co-operative movements, as they are not part of the 
National Grange. We give them all possible moral encour- 
agement and support, but they are not legally component 
parts of the national organization." 

By this it will be understood that co-operation is left to 
the local and State granges, and in looking through the re- 
ports of the State organizations, one may get an idea of the 
dimensions of the co-operative movement among the Pa- 
trons of Husbandry. _y 

It is evident that co-operation is still a power among the 
farmers, and it is not improbable that one may say, at pres- 
ent, an increasing power. The Texas Co-operative Associa- 
tion of the Patrons of Husbandry reported seventy-five 
co-operative granges in 1881, the number soon increased to 
one hundred, while in the present year one hundred and 
fifty stores are claimed in addition to one central agency or 
wholesale house. 

Other States cannot show so favorable a record, but sev- 
eral of them send encouraging reports. A large store is the 
co-operative commission house in Baltimore, called the 
Maryland Grange Agency, Patrons of Husbandry, the suc- 
cess of which may fairly be called brilliant. It operates on 
the favorite Rochdale plan, dividing profits on sales, after 
paying expenses and a moderate interest on capital. This, 
it may be remarked, is the most common practice in the 
case of distributive co-operation. During the last two 
years the Baltimore agency at 83^ S. Charles Street has 
divided $9,000 in profits. It started with a capital of $12 
in 1876, and sold two million dollars worth of goods during 
the first four years, and that without the loss of a dollar. Its 
transactions now range from three to five hundred thousand 
dollars per annum. California has a successful co-operative 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 179 

enterprise to show in the Grange Bank, with a paid-in capi- 
tal of $5,000,000. This, however, comes more properly 
under the head of co-operative credit, which is, after all, a 
different thing from co-operative distribution. The Knights 
of Labor are beginning to establish stores, many of them 
as yet quite humble, in every part of the United States ; and 
all over the country one finds scattered, unconnected co- 
operative stores. The largest enterprise of this character, 
so far as I have been able to ascertain, is the Philadelphia 
Industrial Co-operative Society, founded in 1874. Starting 
with one store, the forty-third quarterly report gives the 
addresses of four main stores and four branches. The sales 
for this quarter, ending May 16, 1885, amounted to $57,- 
649.87. Dividends have been regularly paid on purchases, 
and the society has been prosperous from the start. Apart 
from the direct benefit, there has been indirect gain from a 
lower range of prices in other stores in the vicinity. The 
society acts as a savings bank, as it receives money from the 
poor for investment in shares and allows interest and profits 
to accumulate. This money saved may be withdrawn, and 
the president of the society told me that in this way the 
organization had kept many a family from distress during 
the recent hard times. 

I might fill several pages of manuscript with an imperfect 
list of co-operative stores and agencies of one kind and 
another, but the scope of this work does not admit it. 
Does the reader wish an estimate of the total business trans- 
acted by co-operative distribution in the Unitnd States? 
An estimate is scarcely possible, but I will give a rash guess, 
and say, twenty millions of dollars per annum. 



180 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

II. Productive Co-operation. 

While co-operative distribution adopts as its maxim, 
"Competence to the purchaser," productive co-operation 
finds a watchword in, " Competence to the workman." The 
first benefits the laborer indirectly. It helps him as a con- 
sumer, but not as a workingman. It teaches him thrift and 
frugality, and affords him an opportunity to invest his sav- 
ings. It does not enter into the sphere of his activities as a 
producer. Co-operation in production, however, takes hold 
at once of the more vital problem of the relations between 
capital and labor. 

It might be thought that production ought to come first, 
then consumption, then a combination of both in integral 
co-operation, embracing the entire range of industrial life. 
Such has not, however, been the view of co-operators, for it 
has been held that the simpler process, distribution or ex- 
change, ought to precede the more complex process, pro- 
duction. Undoubtedly the organization of industry for pro- 
ductive purposes is more difficult than the purchase and sale 
of commodities in the store, and it is equally certain that the 
preliminary training obtained by the management of distrib- 
uting agencies may be helpful in productive co-operation. 

There are various forms of productive enterprise which 
may be classed together under the general head of co- 
operative production. One form is called industrial part- 
nership, or profit sharing, which contemplates a voluntary 
division of profits by the employer of labor. The remuner- 
ation of the employees is made to depend in part upon the 
success of the enterprise, and they are occasionally encour- 
aged to purchase an interest in the business. Pure co- 
operation in production is an association of laborers to 
conduct a productive undertaking on their own account 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 181 

They abolish the employer, or captain, of industry and 
employ themselves. Co-operation is also used to denote a 
union of producers for production, even when these pro- 
ducers do not belong to the class of employees. Thus we 
hear about the co-operation of farmers in cheese factories 
and creameries. Profits are divided according to various 
principles, but the commonest method is to conduct a 
co-operative establishment like an ordinary joint stock con- 
cern, paying wages and dividing profits on stocks in propor- 
tion to investment. In other words, as a rule, co-operative 
manufacturing establishments are joint stock corporations in 
which the actual workers are at the same time the stock- 
holders and managers. There may be other peculiar features 
connected with the co-operative enterprise. A portion of 
the earnings may be set aside for common purposes, as 
amusement and education; and it is the practice to give 
each shareholder only one vote, to prevent combinations 
and that robbery of a minority which is unhappily so famil- 
iar to us in corporate management. Occasionally interest is 
paid on capital, and the surplus profit is distributed among 
the laborers. It rarely happens that any portion of the 
profits of a productive and co-operative concern is divided 
among purchasers. I cannot now recollect a single instance 
of the kind in America. 

Productive co-operation before our late war may be dis- 
missed with few words. The object of this co-operation, as 
seen, is to establish the industrial independence of the 
laborer and to enable him to divert profits into his own 
pockets. It is only recently that there has been an immense 
field for this sort of association ; for production in manufac- 
tures was at an earlier period carried on in small shops whose 
proprietors were likewise manual laborers. There were com- 
paratively few employees, and these could always hope soon 



J82 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

to enter into direct relations with the consumer of their 
products. Agriculturists did not feel the need of co-opera- 
tion. There were always " hired men " in the North, but 
these were easily able to become independent farmers, 
working for no master ; and the agricultural laborer of the 
South was a slave. The farmer, the carpenter, the black 
smith, and the shoemaker, comprised a large portion of the 
producers in the United States one hundred years ago, and 
none of these then desired co-operative industry. . 

The cod and mackerel fisheries^/however, are an excep- 
tion. These required larger forces and greater capital, and 
profit-sharing was introduced in this branch of production 
one hundred and fifty years ago, and is still continued. 1 
Those who went on whaling voyages from New England also 
were remunerated in part in the profits of the voyage. The 
merchants in the China trade are generally mentioned in this 
connection because they allowed their men a percentage on 
the profits of each voyage ; and this practice seems to have 
been not uncommon among ship owners fifty years ago. At 
any rate, the chief officer, the captain, appears to have been 
very often, perhaps as a rule, a participant in profits. 

The first large co-operative movement in the field of pro- 
duction was, so far as I discover, among the workers in 
iron, and it was undoubtedly due largely to the indefati- 
gable efforts of William H. Sylvis, the founder of the Iron 
Moulders' International Union. 

Mr. Sylvis made a report to the Iron Moulders' Union in 
1864, in which he dwelt upon the advantages of co-operative 
foundries. A committee was appointed to take this subject 
into consideration, and in the words of Mr. Sylvis's biographer, 

1 For an account of profit-sharing in the New England fisheries, see 
the " Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor," for 
1886. 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 183 

this committee " gave birth to the agitation which has since 
made the moulders so greatly successful in their application 
of the principle of co-operation to production, as is evidenced 
in the existence of several co-operative foundries in Troy, 
Albany, Cincinnati, and other places which are now making 
a great deal of money by assuring to themselves, not only 
the wages made by ordinary workers, but the profits earned 
or secured by capitalists in foundries conducted on the 
wages system." That Mr. Sylvis laid sufficient stress on 
co-operation is proved by the following extract from an arti- 
cle on that topic in the Iron Moulders' International Jour- 
nal : — 

" Of all the questions now before us, not one is of so great 
importance, or should command so large a portion of our 
consideration, as co-operation. . . . Co-operation is the only 
true remedy for low wages, strikes, lock-outs, and a thousand 
other impositions and annoyances to which workingmen are 
subjected." 

At the close of 1869, members of the Iron Moulders' 
International Union owned and operated fourteen co-opera- 
tive foundries chiefly in New York and Pennsylvania. 1 

How many foundries were established, there is no means 
of discovering. Most of them have failed, but there have 
been some examples of success, and the iron-workers still 
show sufficient faith in co-operation to continue an unin- 
terrupted series of experiments in associated effort. 

The Co-operative Foundry Company of Rochester has 
been a financial success, though a partial failure as a co- 
operative enterprise. When it was established, nineteen 
years ago, all employees were stockholders, and profits 
were divided as follows : twelve per cent on capital, and the 
balance in proportion to the earnings of the men. But 

1 Authority is an article in the New York Times of Jan. 18, 1870. 



184 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

the capitalist was stronger than the co-operative brother 
Dividends on capital were advanced in a few years to seven- 
teen and one-half per cent on capital, then to twenty- 
five, and finally the distribution of any part of the profits in 
proportion to wages was discontinued. Money has been 
made, and dividends have been paid every year. Two 
years ago they amounted to forty per cent on capital. 
About one-fifth of the employees are now stockholders. 
Co-operation has not in this case prevented a conflict be- 
tween employer and employee, as is^hown in a recent strike 
of three months and a half duration. It is interesting to 
notice that one of the strikers, a member of the Moulders* 
Union, owned stock to the amount of $7,000. 

The Buffalo Co-operative Stove Company is still in opera- 
tion, and its prospects are reported as good. I am unable 
to learn how much of the stock is owned by workmen. 

The iron moulders established a co-operative foundry in 
Nashua, N. H., in 1881, with a capital of $4,000 which has 
been increased to $16,000. Customary wages are paid in 
addition to ten per cent on stock. The effect on character 
is indicated by the fact that there is only one intemperate 
man among the workmen, and it is said that he is reform- 
ing. 

Another successful co-operative foundry company is de- 
scribed in the Massachusetts Report on Labor for 1877. It 
was established in 1868 in Somerset, Mass., and is still in 
successful operation in that place. A foundry, under the 
auspices of the Knights of Labor, has been recently started, 
or is about to start, at Spring City, Pa. A new co-operative 
stove foundry in Atchison, Kan., has also been reported 
recently. It is evident, then, that there has been more or 
less co-operation, and a great deal of co-operative feeling 
among the iron-moulders during the last twenty years. 



CO-OPERATION W AMERICA. 185 

The Sovereigns of Industry did but little in the way of 
productive co-operation, and the Patrons of Husbandry 
have accomplished comparatively little in this direction, 
although their achievements have not been unworthy of 
notice. Indeed, it is certain that our farmers do not desire 
any all-embracing system of co-operation, for that would 
include agriculture which most of them wish to pursue 
individually. Their co-operation has ever looked chiefly, 
though not exclusively, to the abolition of an expensive sur- 
plus of middlemen, in order to save the gains of this class 
for themselves. 

The only large and powerful organization which has 
earnestly taken hold of the entire industrial problem, with a 
view to the final introduction of co-operation into all spheres 
of production, and the complete overthrow of the present 
industrial and competitive economic order, is the Knights of 
Labor. Their public Declaration of Principles contains this 
statement with reference to co-operation : — 

" We will endeavor to associate our own labors, to estab- 
lish co-operative institutions, such as will supersede the wage 
system by the introduction of a co-operative industrial sys- 
tem." 

While the Knights of Labor have not entirely neglected 
distributive co-operation, their achievements in productive 
co-operation are far more remarkable, and are now to be 
seen in all parts of the land. I suppose that I might, with- 
out great difficulty, enumerate one hundred co-operative 
undertakings at present in progress under the auspices of 
the Knights. 

One of the branches of production in which co-operation, 
both among the Knights of Labor, and among other work- 
ing-men, has noticeable results to exhibit, is journalism and 
publication. The following periodicals are published by 



186 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

co-operative societies : the Labor Sif tings of Fort Worth, 
Tex. ; the Trades Union, of Atchison, Kan. ; the Puget 
Sound Weekly Co-operator, W. T. ; the People, Providence, 
R. I. ; the Daily Evening Star of Bay City, Mich. ; the 
daily and weekly Laborer of Haverhill, Mass. ; and the New 
Yorker Volkszeitung. The success of the two last named 
is considerable. With the exception of the Staatszeitung 
of New York, the New Yorker Volkszeitung, a moderate 
socialistic journal, claims the largest circulation among the 
German papers of the country. IMs a daily, with a weekly 
and a special Sunday edition. The Boston Herald, it is 
interesting to note, may be traced back to a co-operative 
enterprise among a number of printers in 1846. 

The Kentucky Railroad Tobacco Company of Covington 
is endeavoring to introduce equitable relations between 
labor and capital in this novel manner : The employees are 
paid " weekly their wages in cash and in full, and these 
wages to be fully up to the prices paid for corresponding 
labor in any factory in the vicinity." Now these wages are 
regarded as a dividend of six per cent on the labor cap- 
ital reprer ;nted by the workman. If an employee averages 
$12 a week, his labor stock is estimated at $10,000 ; for at 
six per cent interest that would yield $600. In other 
words, wages are capitalized and added to money capital. 
As labor has already received six per cent in wages, cap- 
ital must first receive six per cent out of any profits. 
The surplus is a dividend on labor stock and on cash 
capital. Thus, if eight per cent on the entire capital is 
realized, the laborer whose earnings are $600 per annum 
will receive an additional $200, or two per cent on his 
labor stock of $10,000. The following lines are under- 
scored in the circular of the company : — 

" Every stockholder in this concern must be a worker. 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA, 187 

No one is allowed to hold any of the stock who does not 
work in the factory. Every worker in the factory must be a 
Knight of Labor. 

" The only factory in the United States that recognizes 
the equality of labor and capital.' ' 

The president of the company, J. R. Ledyard, pub- 
lished some time ago the following testimony as to the 
advantages of co-operation as exhibited by their ex- 
perience : — 

" The marked effect of co-operation, as is shown amongst 
the workers in this factory, would convince any one that 
it works good results in the whole morale of the man. 
So much does every one in the factory feel interested 
that it requires no watching, no ordering, no admoni- 
tions, but all are on the alert to do and keep everything 
the best." 

It is not necessary to consider at length all the individual 
cases of co-operatipn in production in the United States. 
I Indeed, to do so would require a work of several volumes. 
A few concerns are mentioned, however, merely to show the 
diversity of pursuits to which it is attempted to a^ply co- 
operation, and also to bring out clearly the fact that the 
movement is national in extent. Many, in fact nearly all, 
the enterprises are humble from the point of view of busi 
ness, but their significance lies in their germinal character, 
Carpenters* Co-operative Association, Decatur, 111. ; Co-oper- 
ative Manufacturing Company (boots and shoes), Easton 
Pa. \ Concord Co-operative Printing Company (limited) 
47 and 49 Center Street, New York; Co-operative Flint 
Works, Beaver Falls, Pa. ; Richmond (Va.) Co-operative 
Commercial and Manufacturing Company (soap) ; Union 
Co-operative Granite Works, South Ryegate, Vt. ; Quincy 
Co-operative Granite Works, West Quincy, Mass. ; two co- 



188 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

operative hat companies, in South Norwalk, Ct. ; Union 
Co-operative Building Association, Denver, Col. 1 

The most remarkable success of co-operative production 
is found among the coopers of Minneapolis. Their first 
co-operative barrel factory was started in 1874, and there 
are now seven of them, doing a business of one million dol- 
lars yearly. Interest is paid on money invested, and surplus 
profits are divided among the coopers in proportion to earn- 
ings. 

Nearly all the mills of Minneapolis are supplied by them, 
and are well satisfied with the quality of their work. It is 
prophesied by Mr. J. S. Rankin that soon there will not be 
a "boss" cooper shop in the town. This Mr. Rankin, 
whose name is important in the history of co-operation in 
Minneapolis, is thus described by a common acquaintance : — 

" There is an old printer, named Rankin, here, who is a 
moderate socialist and well read in political economy. He 
is a charming old man, and comes into my office for a talk 
occasionally. He is reading Sidgwick just now. . . . He is 
an ardent believer in co-operation, and has been a sort of 
father to the movement among our coopers. " 

As I was not able to visit Minneapolis in my tour of in- 
vestigation, I will quote the interesting testimony of an eye- 
witness, my friend, Dr. Albert Shaw of the Minneapolis Tri- 
bune, who has had opportunity to see the practical workings 
of co-operation in Minneapolis, and who kindly writes me 
the following statement : — 

" I have found a remarkable instance of productive co- 
operation. I have already begun to collect the data for an 

1 Twelve co-operative manufacturing enterprises in Massachusetts 
are mentioned in the report of Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1886. 
The article on Profit Sharing in that Report should be read by those 
who desire further information on this subject. 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 189 

economic essay, to be entitled, 'The Co-operative Coopers 
of Minneapolis/ So far as I am aware, these cooper-shops 
form the most successful examples of productive co-opera- 
tion in the world ; and yet, if anybody has ever alluded to 
them in a scientific way, I have never found it out. When 
I state that the flour mills of this city far surpass those of 
any other milling point in the world, and that they have a 
daily capacity of thirty thousand barrels of floor, you will 
perceive the necessity for coopers. Not far from half the 
flour is shipped in barrels (the other half in sacks). There 
are some seven hundred coopers at work on flour barrels. 
About two hundred and fifty of these are ' journey- men* 
working for ' boss ' coopers in three different shops. The 
remaining four hundred and fifty (more or less) are grouped 
in seven co-operative shops, which they own and manage 
themselves. Tk system is indigenous. It has been devel- 
oped by laboring men without any patronage, or preaching, 
or persuasive literature. It began a dozen years ago in the 
feeblest way, without friends or capital, and in the face of 
suspicion and distrust. It has won its way until two-thirds 
of the coopers have gone into co-operative movements. It 
has secured such State laws as it required, and it has credit 
and standing. Its moral effects are more marked and grati- 
fying than its financial and industrial success. It develops 
manhood, responsibility, self-direction, and independence. 
Co-operative building associations have had some 
degree of success here, and still greater in St. Paul. A 
good many of the co-operative coopers own houses, which 
they were able to build by virtue of membership in co-oper- 
ative building associations." 



190 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

III. Other Co-operative Forms. 

The various forms of co-operative union between em- 
ployer and employee are deservedly attracting attention at 
present. It is impossible to give statistics showing the 
extent to which such union prevails, but a few prominent 
and typical instances may properly be mentioned by way of 
illustration. 

The employees of the publishers of the New Yorker 
Staatszeitung, and of the CV/z/^r^magazine have for some 
time shared in the profits of these remunerative enterprises, 
and the results are pronounced most satisfactory to all par- 
ties concerned. The proprietor of a third leading periodi- 
cal, Mr. George W. Childs of the Public Ledger, shares 
profits with his men, but I am not aware that he has 
adopted any definite rule as to the proportion he gives them. 
He states plainly, however, that if he has any money to give 
away, he thinks those first to be remembered are the men 
who helped him to earn it. The compositors in the Ledger 
office receive considerably higher wages than the Union to 
which they belong demands. This Union, the International 
Typographical Union, is encouraged by Mr. Childs in various 
ways, as he sees no reason why his employees should not 
combine for their mutual benefit. The organized composi- 
tors of Philadelphia having received a plot of ground from 
him for use as a cemetery, now call it the Printers' Cemetery. 
In the summer of 1885 Mr. Childs invited the delegates to the 
annual convention of the International Typographical Union 
to pay him a visit in Philadelphia, where he entertained 
them handsomely. Mr. Childs has consequently been made 
a member of the local unions in Washington and Baltimore, 
as well as elsewhere, and in more than one lodge-room of 
the order his photograph is a highly prized ornament. It is 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 191 

doubtful whether any other large employer of labor is so 
reverenced by his men as Mr. Childs by the printers. 

Mr. Walter A. Wood of Hoosac Falls, N. Y., the presi- 
dent of the Walter A. Wood Mowing and Reaping Machine 
Company, has made it very easy for his employees to 
acquire stock in the company, and has in various other ways 
practically co-operated with his men, and is well pleased 
with the successful experiment. A few years ago it was 
stated in the Massachusetts Report on Labor that the Wal- 
tham Watch Company had likewise assisted its employees 
to acquire stock, and that with the most happy results. 

A careful plan of profit sharing has been developed by 
Messrs. Charles A. Pillsbury & Co., merchant millers of 
Minneapolis, who politely write me as follows concerning 
their methods : — 

" Three years since, we started the co-operative system in 
our mills by setting aside a percentage of our profits, which 
we divide among certain of our men. First, we include in 
the division every man who occupies an especially important 
position and trustworthy place in any of our mills or our 
office ; and, secondly, every man who has been in our 
employ for five years or over, no matter how menial his 
position. . . . We certainly have the most loyal set of 
employees in the world, and we think the money which we 
have thus set aside and paid out has been the best invest- 
ment we ever made. We never have the least trouble on 
the question of labor. . . . We think the great success of 
our flour has been not so much that it is better than any 
other flour that can be found in the market, but from its 
great uniformity ; and this result it would be impossible to 
obtain without the most conscientious co-operation of our 
employees." 

The Messrs. Pillsbury modestly refrain from offering for 



192 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

publication any statement of the amount of profits dis- 
tributed by them to their employees, but elsewhere it has 
been asserted that it was in the neighborhood of one hun- 
' dred thousand dollars. 

Co-operative insurance demands a few words in a survey 
of the field of co-operation, although it is not specifically a 
labor affair. All insurance is, in a certain sense, co-opera- 
tion, for men practically agree to help one another in case 
of loss. It often happens that there is a go-between in the 
shape of a joint-stock corporation, which may raise the cost 
by extra charges, to cover the expense of dividends and sal- 
aries which are sometimes exorbitant. The mutual compa- 
nies are a nearer approach to pure co-operation, inasmuch 
as any surplus, after expenses are defrayed, professes to be 
distributed among the insured. A reserve of large propor- 
tions is often accumulated, but if this is honest it is simply a 
guarantee, and is held in trust for the policy-holders, that is 
to say, those who are insured. The so-called co-operative 
insurance companies are generally, if not always, assessment 
companies. Definite payments are not required, but in case 
of death or loss, an assessment is levied on each member. 
It is well known that insurance is one of the chief lines of 
business to-day in all civilized communities. The number 
of companies which are called co-operative is also large, 
and a considerable part of their membership consists of 
working people. In the year 1883, one hundred and twenty 
co-operative companies reported to the insurance depart- 
ment of New York State. Their total assets were nearly 
two and a half millions of dollars, and their receipts from 
members, during the year, nearly eleven and a half millions. 
Many labor societies have insurance features connected with 
them, as, for example, the Knights of Labor. The insur- 
ance department of this organization has not long been 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 193 

thoroughly organized, but it includes some six thousand 
members. There are also innumerable friendly societies in 
the United States which have insurance features on the 
mutual plan. Nearly all the negroes in Southern cities 
belong to one or more of these. 

Another kind of insurance, and one which takes directly 
hold of the labor problem, is that occasionally provided 
through the medium of employers. The most remarkable 
instance is the Baltimore and Ohio Employees' Relief Asso- 
ciation, which provides for accident, disability, death, and, 
in fact, nearly every contingency except lack of work. Its 
membership is between sixteen and seventeen thousand, and 
during the last fiscal year it distributed over two hundred 
and sixty thousand dollars in benefits. The Baltimore and 
Ohio Company contributes some thirty thousand dollars a 
year to the association. The work of this association is 
little appreciated among the employees who belong to it. 
For this there are several reasons. One is, that membership 
is compulsory on all who have entered the service of the 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company since the compulsory 
feature was announced, some three or four years ago. Sec- 
ond, the members renounce in advance all claims against the 
company in case of injury. Third, although the insurance 
is cheap, unsound associations offer insurances at such low 
rates that the men think it high. The men get back all they 
put in, and more too. Fourth, the company has, unhappily, 
a name as a hard master ; and whatever it does is viewed 
with suspicion by its employees, even when, as in this case, 
there is little ground for anything but satisfaction. Fifth, a 
just cause for complaint is one which it is difficult to see a 
way to avoid altogether. The dependence of the men is 
increased ; and, in case of discharge, much that has been 
paid is lost. 



194 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company has introduced a 
similar plan of insurance, though the pronounced opposition 
of its employees has induced it to abandon the compulsory 
feature. 

Careful thought and an examination of the subject in the 
light of European experience has at length convinced that 
it is doubtful whether it is desirable to encourage the insur- 
ance of laborers by their employers ; and I say this with a 
full appreciation of the great good which the Baltimore and 
Ohio Association has accomplished. It can be too easily 
abused to enslave the employees of vast corporations, upon 
which there is already so large a measure of dependence 
as to endanger the free development of those who desire 
a livelihood in their service. It is better that insurance 
should be effected through the agency of ind pendent 
associations which do not impede freedom of movement. 1 

It is an unfortunate feature of co-operative or assessment 
life and accident insurance, that most people do not under- 
stand that the average man cannot take out more than he 
puts in. Insurance is simply a plan whereby men help one 
another ; and all the benefits one member of the association 
receives must be paid by the insured. The superintendent 
of the insurance department of New York says truly, that it 
is impossible to understand how intelligent people can be 
duped by many of these co-operative insurance schemes 
which one meets on every hand. The superintendent has 
heard from men of good business reputation their statement 

1 It should be distinctly understood that this opinion is not based on 
my observation of the workings of the Baltimore and Ohio Relief 
Association ; for I believe the employees of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railway have been better treated since its existence than formerly; 
but permanent institutions must be judged apart from their present 
managers. 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 195 

of " an implicit belief in a representation that, on the pay- 
ment of a maximum amount of #250, they will receive 
shortly $2,500." 

The result of this failure of the ordinary mind to under- 
stand the limitations of insurance is sad disappointment and 
vast loss. Misrepresentations are found in co-operative 
schemes, even in places where it would be little expected. 
A carpenter told me not long since that he insured in a co- 
operative and benevolent society connected with one of the 
largest sects in America. Though over thirty, he was told 
that he could be insured for $2,000 on payment of $7 per 
annum. There was an initiation fee, and assessment of $1 
in case of death whenever the money was needed ; but he 
was assured that there would not be over seven assessments 
annually. At the present time there are two and three a 
month. How serious and important - subject this is will be 
seen by the statement that a newspaper not long ago pub- 
lished a list of nearly five hundred failures among co-opera- 
tive companies. There is doubtless a field for co-operation 
in insurance of every kind ; but this entire business must be 
regulated by law, and in each State placed under the strict- 
est control of an insurance department officered by skilled 
and experienced men. This is one of the cases where men 
can protect themselves only through the agency of that great 
co-operative institution we call the State. 



Co-operative Credit. 

There are few, if any, co-operative banks doing an ordi- 
nary banking business, but designed particularly for the 
working people of the United States. The large bank of 
the Grangers in California has been mentioned, and several 
other banks have at various times been established under 



196 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

the auspices of the same order. Why banking institutions 
for working people should meet with remarkable success in 
Germany, doing an annual business which is estimated in 
hundreds of millions, while they have elsewhere attained no 
considerable proportions, is not quite clear; and such 
explanation as can be given would require more space than 
ought to be allowed therefor in this book. It is, however, 
noteworthy that each of the four countries where co-opera- 
tion has attained immense proportions should be specially 
distinguished for success along one particular line, — namely, 
England for vast achievements in distributive co-operation, 
France for productive co-operation, Germany for banking 
through the co-operative credit unions, and the United 
States for the building associations, which will be described 
directly. Before leaving this topic, it is worth while to say, 
that there have been those who have strongly advocated the 
belief that the German co-operative union might be made a 
success among us. The late Josiah Quincy labored to estab- 
lish them in Massachusetts, but did not succeed in inducing 
the State Legislature to pass a suitable law. I trust I may 
be pardoned for the personal allusion, if I state that after 
the publication of an article on co-operative credit unions 
five years ago, in the Atlantic Monthly, Mr. Quincy wrote to 
me, urging me to take up the work where advancing years 
compelled him to drop it. 

The Building Association, it has been said, is the most 
successful form of co-operation in the United States. The 
institution is also known by other names, having formerly 
been called the Co-operative Saving Fund and Loan Associ- 
ation in Massachusetts. This name was changed to Co- 
operative Bank three years ago, simply for the sake of con- 
venience. Both names are apt to mislead the uninitiated. 
The institution never constructs a building, nor does it con- 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA, 197 

duct an ordinary banking business. It is an association of 
men designed primarily to aid one another in securing 
homes. The prospectus of the Co-operative Bank of 
Haverhill lies before me and gives a good idea of its scope 
in these lines, printed on one side as an advertisement : — 

" Do you wish to purchase a house ? Do you wish to pay 
off an existing mortgage ? Do you wish to build a house ? 
Do you wish to become your own landlord ? Do you wish 
to save money? The Co-operative Bank will assist you in 
either case." 

Below are two effective pictures. The first presents to 
the view a beautiful cottage, neat, well kept, surrounded by 
fine grounds. Beneath is the information, "The occupant 
of this house is paying for it through the Co-operative Bank." 
The second gives a view of a city tenement, blinds off the 
hinges, clothes flying on the housetop, and on the adjoining 
building the sign, " Wines and Liquors." Words printed 
below tell you that, "The occupant of this house has not 
yet heard of the Co-operative Bank." The first of these 
Building Associations was established at Frankford, a suburb 
of Philadelphia, in 1831, and bore the name of the Oxford 
Provident Building Association. The institution gradually 
became common in Philadelphia, and extended thence to 
the other States, but its greatest success outside of Penn- 
sylvania appears to have been attained in Ohio, New Jersey, 
and Massachusetts. 

The plan is a simple one in its outlines. A number of 
people associate themselves to form such a society, let us 
say two hundred. They meet monthly, and pay into the 
bank $1 each, or, all together, $200. Now this money is 
put up at auction, and lent to the one who pays the highest 
premium for it. Interest must be paid in addition at the 
jegal rate; and security is exacted. This goes on month 



198 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

after month, all the moneys available being auctioned off 
every month. Every one is a depositor or lender, and some 
are borrowers. The deposits are to pay for shares, usually 
$200 each. Now it is manifest that one dollar must be 
deposited once a month for two hundred months to pay for 
a share, if no account is taken of profits and interest, which, 
however, often reduce the time to ten years, and sometimes 
to eight or nine. The deposits must be made regularly 
until the shares taken are paid for. Let us suppose you 
take five shares, or $1000. Yqi* also borrow $1000 to 
enable you to build a house. By the time you have bought 
the shares, your credit equals your debt, and that is paid. 
The shares are said to have "matured." If you have 
borrowed no money, you receive $1000 in cash. Premiums, 
fines for dilatory payment, and interest all go to swell profits 
and to shorten the time during which the shares mature. 

The career of these useful associations has been some- 
what marred by many failures, owing to dishonesty and mis- 
management ; but in Pennsylvania experience has taught the 
people how to manage them with a fair degree of safety ; 
and in Massachusetts good laws and the watchfulness and 
supervision of the bank commissioners have placed them on 
a secure footing. The large achievements of the Building 
Associations are indicated by this "fact about co-operation/ ' 
taken from the Haverhill Pi'ospectus, already mentioned : — 

" Philadelphia has 600 Building Associations, with a capi- 
tal of $80,000,000, and a membership of 75,000. The 
entire State of Pennsylvania has about 1,800 associations." 

The bank commissioners of Massachusetts enumerate 
twenty-six co-operative banks in that State, with 10,294 
members, 2,018 borrowers, $1,971,923.20 in assets, an in- 
crease of $500,660.77 from the preceding year. The reports 
for several years indicate a healthy condition of the banks, 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 199 

and in the report for 1884 the commissioners say, "These 
banks have generally enjoyed a prosperous year." 

Six years ago it was officially stated that 60,000 comfort- 
able houses had been constructed in Philadelphia alone 
through the aid derived from the Building Associations, and 
it is certain that Mr. Barnard did not exaggerate when 
he entitled the chapter describing them, in his book 
on Co-operation as a Business, " One hundred thousand 
homes." 

IV. Past Failures and Future Possibilities. 

Before we pass over to the subject of failures in co- 
operation, it is important to emphasize a fact which the 
preceding pages in this chapter have already made apparent ; 
namely, that a large measure of success has attended co- 
operation in the United States. When we sweep over the 
entire field with any care, we find various kinds of co- 
operation representing in the aggregate annual transac- 
tions which may safely be estimated at over two hundred 
millions of dollars. Part of this co-operative effort has but 
an indirect bearing on the labor problem, but it all indicates 
and measures a general movement, and is undoubtedly of 
vast significance. We may then draw this general conclu- 
sion : co-operation has by no means been a total failure in 
the United States ; on the contrary a large measure of 
success has been attained ; and the co-operative movement 
in America was never so truly a live, vigorous force, full of 
promise, as it is to-day. 

Yet the ground is strewn with the fragments of wrecks. 
Large loss, pinching poverty, the disappointment of ardent 
hope and joyous enthusiasm, the frequent abandonment of 
all efforts to obtain improved industrial methods, and a 
sullen acceptance of old conditions as unalterable — all 



200 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

these have, from the start, attended the course of co-opera- 
tion in the United States. Even when co-operative enter- 
prises have succeeded, there has, as a rule, not been that 
large outpouring of good things as a result, which people 
anticipated. 

What have been the causes of failure ? They have been 
partly within the control of the laborer, partly beyond his 
control. 

First, the fact is to be noticed that co-operation generally 
accompanies the progress of some kbor organization. Now, 
those with us who ought to have assisted the general labor- 
movement, to have brought to it intelligence and business 
skill, and infused it with high Christian purpose, have too 
often stood aloof from it, even when they have not been 
positively hostile to it. I must repeat here what I have said 
elsewhere : it is my deliberate opinion that in no country 
in the civilized world have the laborers, as such, been so 
isolated as in the large industrial centres of the United 
States. Both in Germany and in England, many of the 
most brilliant and renowned and highest-minded men of 
our times have been heart and soul with the laborers in all 
their aspirations and struggles. Such has not been the case 
in the United States. 

Several consequences have followed the isolation of the 
laboring classes. Legislators have given so little intelligent 
attention to their needs, that it is only rarely that suitable 
laws are found in our States, under which co-operative insti- 
tutions can organize and conduct business. This has been 
a frequent cause of complaint. Thus the commissioner of 
the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Ohio says, on page 9 of 
his Report for 1879 : — 

" Unfortunately there is no law under which such associa- 
tions can organize with the distinctive idea of co-operation, 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 201 

which is, that each member of such association shall have 
one vote and no more without reference to the number of 
shares held." 

A member of the Co-operative Board of the Knights of 
Labor told me recently that a difficulty encountered in 
Maryland was the absence of suitable laws, while General 
Mussey, who took an honorable part in the co-operative 
movement inaugurated by the Sovereigns of Industry, entered 
a like complaint with respect to the laws of the District of 
Columbia. 

As important as this is, it is nevertheless a minor matter. 
The absence of the participation of truly great minds in the 
American labor movement has kept it on a lower ethical 
plane with us than in England. The life of any industrial 
body or any movement comes from its indwelling spirit, and 
the chief element in successful co-operation must be invisi- 
ble, intangible qualities, such as devotion, self-sacrifice, 
patience in the pursuit of good ends, high purpose, a noble 
esprit de corps such as shall make the maxim, " one for all, 
all for one," a living reality. In short, if co-operation is to 
succeed as a practical application of Christianity to business, 
there must be breathed into it a spirit of Christian consecra- 
tion. A Congregational clergyman, not unknown in Western 
Massachusetts, recently wrote me as follows concerning his 
intention to join the Knights of Labor : — 

" I am convinced that it is a duty as well as a privilege 
to join the order. . . . The problem, as doctors of divinity 
tell us, is, how to get the masses into the Church. I think a 
better statement of the problem is, how to get the Church 
into the masses. The Church is the leaven, the masses are 
the meal. You cannot put a barrel of flour into a bottle of 
yeast. You can put a bottle of yeast into a barrel of flour, 
and with some result too." 



202 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Such a spirit as this has, unfortunately, not been so gen- 
eral in the past as might be desired. Other obstacles in the 
way of the success of co-operation are these : unsteady 
employment, roving habits, the heterogeneous character of 
our population — all preventing that consolidation and amal- 
gamation of the masses which co-operation requires. As it 
is, men do not sufficiently know one another, and are not 
sufficiently attached to one another. 

The multiplicity of openings for the gifted and fortunate 
has been a further difficulty with which co-operation has had 
to contend. In older countries a great deal of talent has 
been found among the laboring classes ready to assist in co- 
operative enterprises. Those members of the working 
class in America, whose help is most needed among those 
with whom their early associations have been cast, have 
often, perhaps generally, left their early position for a higher 
one — at any rate, for one which they thought higher and 
more attractive ; and too often they have been willing to 
ignore their old friends and neighbors. Our current forms 
of philanthropy have had a similar effect. Their general 
aim is too often to raise some one from a class into which 
he has been born, into a higher one, and that, of course, to 
the injury of the masses. The result is that innumerable 
doctors and lawyers are struggling for a practice, and many 
clergymen are preaching to indifferent congregations, who 
might have promoted the welfare of the masses as shoe- 
makers, carpenters, and masons. The fact has been over- 
looked that you injure the mechanics of a town when by 
artificial means you encourage the ten best men among 
them to leave their old occupations. 1 What is needed is 

1 It is hoped that this will not be misunderstood. Those of unusual 
talents ought to be assisted. A Grand Duke of Germany observed artistic 
genius in a kitchen boy in his palace and educated him. He is now 
one of the foremost sculptors of Germany. Cases like this are rare. 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 203 

philanthropic effort designed to benefit the laborer as a 
laborer, the farmer as a farmer, the mechanic as a mechanic. 

These many openings for men of ability, and the large 
returns on capital, have rendered men indifferent to the 
small savings which co-operators in old countries consider 
ample reward for their labor and sacrifices. Americans 
have been too indifferent to small economies. This is seen 
everywhere, and a striking example is the administration of 
cities. Men of large property have deliberately declared 
that they could better afford to bear the burden of munici- 
pal corruption in New York than to give their time to the 
duties of citizenship. 

The masses generally are poor financiers, and especially 
poor bookkeepers. This is a frequent cause of ruin which 
gifted and devoted men might avert. Frequently all that a 
co-operative concern needs to make it a complete success, 
is merely a little friendly counsel by the right man at the 
right time. The counsel has not been forthcoming, owing 
to the already mentioned isolation of the laborers. A lack 
of sufficient capital often ruins a promising co-operative 
business. Here the remedy is obvious. Capital is abun- 
dant, in the eastern part of the United States, at least, and 
well-disposed men of means can, if they will, find opportu- 
nities to help laboring men to help themselves, while at the 
same time receiving a return on their investments. 

Venality and corruption among the masses have often 
ruined co-operative enterprises. The remedy suggests itself, 
namely, a higher ethical development of the masses ; and 
those labor-leaders who are hostile to the Christian religion 
would do well to ask themselves whether any other force 
than Christianity can supply the training in practical ethics 
which is to-day the greatest need of the labor movement. 
Co-operation must become a religion before it can succeed 



204 THE LABOR MOVEMENT, 

in its aim, which is the reconstruction of society. The chief 
cause of success in Great Britain is due to the nearness with 
which it has there approached the character of a true 
religion. 

The need of superior character on the part of co-opera- 
tors is even more indispensable as a condition of success, 
than on the part of those who participate in other forms of 
the labor movement ; for, as Brentano has so well pointed 
out, co-operation is adapted to those who intellectually 
belong to the great average mass, but who, in their moral 
natures, are far above the average. 

Another obstacle to the success of co-operation has been 
the want of a tie to connect various co-operative enterprises. 
In England, co-operation did not become a decided success 
until a central board was formed, and men like Thomas 
Hughes and E. Vansittart Neale were given positions of 
influence in it. The co-operative credit-banks in Germany 
have become a great power because they always acted 
unitedly under their able founder, Schultze Delitzsch, a man 
of university training and of experience both in the law and 
in legislation. Through these central agencies, past experi- 
ence has been utilized ; and an occasional hint or warning 
from the central office, and consultation at annual con- 
gresses have enabled the local societies to avoid the rock on 
which others have made shipwreck. There has been little 
utilization of previous experience in the United States, for 
co-operative enterprises have been too scattered and irregu- 
lar, and one after another they have continued to repeat 
the same mistakes, though three-fourths of them have prob- 
ably been avoidable. 1 

1 Recent publications of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of 
Labor, have in view the utilization of past experience. The Sociologic 
Society of America, whose President is Mrs. Imogene C. Fales, has 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 205 

One large field for co-operation in the United States is to 
be found in the coal regions. Here we find a comparatively 
homogeneous population, and the inhabitants living in close 
proximity to one another. We also find high prices paid for 
poor goods, and a general deficiency in the supply of means 
of distribution. Yet there is little co-operation among the 
miners. What is the reason? The oppressive and generally 
illegal truck system is the answer. Corporations force their 
men to buy at the "company stores." Here is a place 
where the strong arm of the law ought to be exercised with 
vigor. 

As a rule, however, outside of the regions of monopoly, 
profits are not large, either in production or in distribution. 
This is a point in regard to which people deceive them- 
selves. If the laboring men could put the entire profits of 
their grocer into their own pockets, they would, in many 
towns, be greatly disappointed in the smallness of the addi- 
tion to their resources. Sometimes there is no profit at all. 
When the profits are great, it is probable that they are the 
results of large transactions. If a co-operative store is estab- 
lished, it will frequently be discovered that it is not possible 
to distribute goods without profits so cheaply as some old- 
established dealer after his profits have been added, since 
the latter gains only the savings due to extraordinary skill, 
diligence, and long experience. I do not mean that this is 
^lways the case, but it is a description of what often happens. 

Let us turn our attention to an illustration taken from a 
Droductive establishment. It is said that sixty thousand 
,Iollars invested in a shoe factory will employ two hundred 
aen. If profits are ten per cent, the owner obtains six 

stablished a Co-operative Board which offers information to those who 
lesire to start co-operative enterprises. The Chairman of the Board is 
mel Whittles, Jr., II Ferry Street, Fall River, Mass. 



206 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

thousand dollars a year from the business. If the employer 
labors for nothing, and distributes the entire proceeds among 
the men, it will amount to only thirty dollars per annum for 
each. If for each man in a foundry a capital of one thou- 
sand dollars is required, and profits are still ten per cent, that 
would be one hundred dollars for each employee. These 
profits are by no means to be despised, but they are not so 
large for each laborer as is often imagined. The large 
accumulations of employers, and their handsome incomes, 
are frequently derived from small profits on the work of 
each employee. The aggregate is large, because production 
is carried on on a vast scale. The income of a man who 
derives five cents a day from two thousarjl men is one hun- 
dred dollars a day. It must likewise be remembered that it 
is nothing uncommon to find manufacturers who have for 
some time derived no profits from their enterprise, or who 
have even worked at a loss. When laborers start co-opera- 
tive concerns, there is danger that neglect of small econo- 
mies will dissipate all gains. On the other hand, there are 
superior advantages in well-conducted, well- disciplined co- 
operative enterprises, such as greater energy, watchfulness, 
thought, prudence, on the part of the workingmen. 

Are the advocates of co-operation wrong when they point 
to the enormous expenditures and terrible wastefulness of 
our present economic system? The commissioner of the 
Ohio Bureau of Labor Statistics, in his report for 1878, esti- 
mated the annual cost of distributing the products of indus- 
try within the State at fifty millions of dollars. Was it an 
error on his part to imply that a large portion of this 
expenditure was waste ? By no means \ nor are co-oper- 
ators in error when they claim that co-operation might save 
enough to bring comfort to all people in the United States. 
But how can this be effected ? We must inquire into the 



CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 207 

nature of the waste before we can return a satisfactory 
answer. 

This needless expenditure of economic resources, or labor- 
force and capital-force, is the result of competition. Three 
men are engaged in the distribution of groceries and dry- 
goods where one might answer all needs. Twice as many 
men, horses, and wagons are engaged in the distribution of 
milk in a city as would be required if the business of supply- 
ing milk were organized, and different routes assigned to 
each man, so that four or five milkmen would not supply 
customers on each block, which must occasion a vast amount 
of travel to no purpose. The postoffice is a familiar illustra- 
tion. Let one think of the great additional cost if each 
; letter-carrier picked up indiscriminately an armful of unas- 
sorted letters and delivered them. Yet this is much like 
'the methods of competition. In all this the advocates of 
co-operation are quite right. But how can this waste of 
• competition be avoided ? Only by a vast national organiza- 
: tion of co-operative industry, both in production and in dis- 
tribution. This organization must be vast and powerful 
enough to exercise a controlling influence in industry, and 
repress competition and its wastes, or, at any rate, competi- 
: tion wherever and whenever it is excessively wasteful. In no 
: other possible way can co-operation accomplish those ends 
which its adherents have prophesied it would bring to pass. 
But this is not all. There are certain fundamental and pri- 
mary conditions of economic activity. Why grow corn if 
i you cannot get it to market ? Why manufacture steel plows 
, if you cannot ship them to the consumer ? Why engage 
j in business if your rival receives transportation at lower 
; rates than you ? Your failure is only a matter of time, 
i struggle as hard as you may. Away back of ordinary busi- 
3 ness enterprises, behind the energy and skill of the industri' 



208 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

ous, there are governing, indispensable forces, whose control 
is not and never can be in the hands of the private indi- 
vidual. Suitable harbors, highways, bridges, the proper reg- 
ulation and improvement of rivers, the establishment of the 
conditions of public health by quarantine and other sanitary 
arrangements, — all fall within this category. But the most 
important of them all for our present purposes is the rail- 
way. Herein lies the essence of the railway problem. 
Men are working with a halter about their necks, and the 
railway power holds the end of thp rope. If it tightens its 
hold, the victim dies. I know to-day a co-operative coal 
mine which is on this account gasping for breath. 

Professor E. J. James is, then, quite right in his utterance : 
" No system of co-operation or profit-sharing can succeed 
until it is possible to make some estimate of the railroad 
tax, which is in many cases destructive, no less by its 
amount than by its uncertainty." The Knights of Labor are 
also proceeding with a clear perception of the nature of the 
conditions which surround them when, with the proclama- 
tion of their desire to organize co-operative production on a 
vast scale, they couple the demand for a reconstruction of 
our railway system. 

In the meantime, while waiting for a more fortunate basis 
on which to operate, it is well to encourage every attempt of 
working people and of others to co-operate. It is a train- 
ing, a sowing of seed ; and even now, under favorable cir- 
cumstances, co-operation can accomplish much good. We 
must not turn aside from small economies, nor must we be 
so ready, as heretofore, to despise the day of small things. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN 
AMERICA. 

THERE are in the United States three distinct parties 
of socialists, which may be called revolutionary, since 
they each aim at an overthrow of existing economic and 
social institutions, and the substitution therefor of radically 
different forms. These three parties are known as the 
Socialistic Labor Party, the International Working People's 
Association, and the International Workmen's Association, 
and are usually designated by their respective initials, S. L. P., 
I. W. P. A., and I. W. A. One sees these initials continually 
in their publications, and upon them incessant repetition 
seems to have conferred in the minds of socialists a peculiar 
cabalistic quality. Each of the International parties has 
chosen a color, by which it is sometimes called. The color 
of the International Working People's Association is black, 
and one hears occasionally of the " Black International,' ' 1 
while the International Workmen's Association prefers red, 
and those belonging to it like to be known as the " Reds." 

The effort was once made by John Most, to bring into 
use the term the " Blues," as the designation of the mem- 
bers of the Socialistic Labor Party. This was intended as a 
reproach to them on account of their conservatism, but the 
name has never been generally received. 

1 This expression was used originally by Bismarck, as a name for the 
Roman Catholic Party of Germany. 



210 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

It may be well to devote a few words to the general char- 
acteristics of these parties, and to a short account of their 
origin, before passing over to a more detailed description of 
each. These parties differ in most important particulars, 
although they agree upon certain fundamental propositions. 
Their divergence is, first and foremost, one of method. 
Both the "Black" and the "Red" Internationalists are 
men of violence, believing in the use of dynamite and like 
weapons of warfare, as means of attaining their purposes ; 
while the adherents of the Socialistic Labor Party condemn 
these tactics, and some of thenriiave not renounced all 
hope of a peaceful revolution of society. The next differ- 
ence which attracts attention is one of character. The 
Socialistic Labor Party is composed of men of better bal- 
anced minds, and, it has always seemed to me, of better 
training than those who comprise the other parties. 1 The 
Internationalists cannot be denied a certain keenness of per- 
ception, but they are narrow and fanatical. They see 
clearly within a certain range of ideas, but the moment they 
are drawn without the limited circle with which they are 
familiar, they are like men blind from birth. The zeal and 
devotion with which they pursue their ends are remarkable, 
and may be explained by their very narrowness. All their 
intellect and all the force of their moral natures are concen- 
trated on their cause. If the members of the more moder- 
ate Socialistic Labor Party are somewhat less earnest, they 
are broader in their conceptions and more capable of under- 
standing the opinions of those with whom they differ. For 

1 The Internationalists deny strenuously that the moderate socialists 
are better educated, and one who ought to know better than I told me 
once that the Internationalists had all the brains. They have able 
adherents in Europe, like Elisee Reclus and Prince Krapotkine, but I 
still think that my original judgment is correct for our country. 



BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 211 

this reason among others, they adopt a more refined tone 
and have less sympathy with indiscriminate abuse of all who 
uphold existing institutions. It is largely due to this diver- 
sity of method and of personal qualities that the members 
of the three parties have found it impossible to act harmo- 
niously together, and that the Socialistic Labor Party is at 
present at sword's points with the Internationalists. There 
are also important differences of doctrine ; but these, as 
more complicated, will be described in the detailed treat- 
ment of the parties. 

The points of agreement are, as has been said, funda- 
mental, and it is well at the start to clear away a misappre- 
hension which exists in the minds of many by mentioning 
a negative particular, in which all socialists agree. It seems, 
indeed, to be necessary to begin every article, monograph 
or book, on the theory of socialism, by the statement that no 
one advocates or even desires an equal division of produc- 
tive property. What they wish is a concentration of all the 
means of production in the property of the people as a 
whole, and the distribution of the income, that is, of the 
products only, either equally or unequally, according to the 
views entertained of what is just and expedient. It is pro- 
posed to abolish private property in the instruments of pro- 
duction, not, however, in income so far as this consists 
simply of articles of use and enjoyment which cannot serve 
as a basis of further production. 

Another negative in which all socialists agree is this : 
None of them wish to abolish capital, and he who tries to con- 
vince them of the utility of capital, renders himself ridiculous 
to them. What they desire is to do away with a distinct 
class of capitalists, and in this they agree with co-operators, 
although they propose to obtain their end by a very different 
course. Positive points of agreement are these, — all social- 



212 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

ists advocate the use of the best machinery, all favor the 
most improved methods of production, and all desire to 
organize production on a vast international basis. The pro- 
gramme of American socialism, then, includes primarily 
the substitution of some form of exclusive co-operation in 
production and exchange, for the present leadership of 
" Captains of industry " in production and exchange, or 
capitalistic system, as it is termed, and the abolition of pri- 
vate property in land and capital, to make room for common 
property in the instruments of production. In other words, 
all our socialistic parties regarding the wage-receiver as 
practically a slave, desire the advent of a time when co- 
operators shall take the place both of industrial master and 
industrial subordinate. All wish to abolish the possibility of 
idleness, and to make of universal application the maxim : 
" He that will not work, neither shall he eat." The leaders 
of these parties are materialists, though the materialism of 
the Socialistic Labor Party Y is less gross than that of the 
Internationalists. Having abandoned hope of a happy 
hereafter in which the poor, but honest and God-fearing, 
laborer shall find rich reward for all toil and suffering 
patiently borne, they have determined to enjoy this life, 
and, as it is not an easy thing to believe that there is 
no blessedness in the universe, they imagine this earth 
designed to be a paradise. They talk of its beauties and of 
the soul- satisfying delights of life, from all of which they are 
needlessly debarred, not so much, say the moderates, by any 
wilful conspiracy of the rich, as by the failure of man to 

1 A member of this party — the Socialistic Labor Party — com 
merits as follows on their materialism : " Not to be understood in the 
pure sense of the word, better monism as taught by Darwin, Hseckel, 
Kant, and Spinoza, the world being a whole, and all forces being in 
contact." 



BE G INNINGS OF MODERN SO CIALISM IN AMERICA. 213 

perceive that the time has come for a complete reconstruc- 
tion of industrial society. 

It is interesting to notice the general view all modern 
socialists take of society as a growth. Each social form is 
regarded as an era in the development of society ; useful in 
its time, but after awhile becoming antiquated, it must give; 
way to an advanced organism. Slavery, serfdom, and wages 
were not unjustifiable, they hold; but the Internationalists 
and moderates think that these institutions have all had their 
day, have fulfilled their purpose, and are no longer needed 
among the nations of civilization, though there may still be 
regions where they are not yet antiquated. 1 " We do not 
deny/' says one of these socialists, "that there are countries 
that have not yet outlived the wage-system ; but we have 
certainly outlived it in the United States, and cannot safely 
continue it." 2 Socialism is, then, coming just as the leaves 
are coming in spring, and just as these will be followed by 
bloom and fruitage. It is not of human willing, but as 
inevitable and necessary as the law of gravitation. All that 
the more sensible among them profess to be able to do, is to 
guide and direct the mighty forces of nature, which manifest 
themselves in social revolutions and convulsions. Thus it 
was natural that the resolutions presented to the meeting of 
Anarchists held in Chicago, on Thanksgiving day of 1884, 
should begin, " Whereas, we have outlived the usefulness of 
the wage and property system, that it now and must here- 
after cramp, limit, and punish 3 all increase of production, and 

1 This is the explanation of one of the socialists : " Socialists at 
large consider capitalism a necessary means for reaching a higher level 
of civilization. Socialism cannot be established without developed 
capitalism, the value of which consists in introducing and perfecting 
the ' Great-Production.' " 

2 V. The Alarm, Dec. 6, 1884. Article, Co-operation. 

8 The author gives his quotations verbatim et literatim, making no 
attempt to improve style or grammar. 



214 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

can no longer gratify the necessities, rights, and ambitions 
of man," etc. 

It may be stated that in general the teachings of Carl 
Marx are accepted by both parties, and his work on capital 
("Das Kapital ") is still the Bible of the socialists. 1 This 
work has not as yet been translated into English, although a 
translation is announced for the near future; but extracts 
from it have been turned into our tongue and published ; 
and brochures, pamphlets, newspapers, and verbal expositions 
have extended his doctrines, while JH. M. Hyndman has 
expounded the views of the great teacher in his " Historical 
Basis of Socialism " in England. 

In this country a young enthusiast, Laurence Gronlund, 
a lawyer of Philadelphia, has written a recently published 
work, entitled "The Co-operative Commonwealth," designed 
to present the socialism of Marx, as it appears after it has 
been digested, to use the author's words, " by a mind Anglo- 
Saxon in its dislike of all extravagances, and in its freedom 
from any vindictive feeling against persons who are from 
circumstances what they are." 

The use of the red flag, and also of the color red in 
other forms, as an emblem of their faith, is common to 
socialists the world over. What does it mean ? The reply 
can be best given in the following quotations, which have 
been gathered together from various sources. 

The red flag, — " The emblem of the universal brother- 
hood of man." 

1 Recently one of their papers, the New Yorker Volkszeitung> pro- 
tested against this epithet as applied to the work of Marx, as it was not 
desired that any book should be regarded in the light of an infallible 
guide. It was feared that this would hinder progress. Yet the term 
describes better than anything else the actual feeling towards "Das 
Kapital," and among the more ignorant socialists reverence for a great 
leader has ere this approached idolatry. 



BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 215 

It is "the symbol of the frequently shed blood of the 
proletariat, and at the same time the sign of the salvation 
of the suffering and starving people." — Vorbote of Chicago, 
Sept. 9, 1885. 

"The red flag signifies the gospel Paul preached on Mars 
Hill, that God had made of one blood all nations, and that 
it is the banner of one blood, the emblem of fraternity. ,, — 
First Report of the Kansas Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 
p. 100. 1 

" It may be said that the color red, which for decorative 
purposes is capable of magnificent effects, represents to 
French workmen not, as some have absurdly said, violence 
in any way, but the peaceful republic of industry." — Fred- 
eric Harrison in the Fortnightly Review, vol. 23, New Series 
(1878). 

" The red flag is the symbol of blood shed by the people 
for liberty. Adopted by socialists of all countries, it repre- 
sents the unity and fraternity of the races of men, while 
the national banners represent hostility and war between the 
different States." — In the Preamble adopted by the English 
Internationalists in 1873. Quoted from Professor de Lave- 
leye's " Socialism of To-day," p. 210. 

It is thus seen that the red flag in itself is innocent. It 
may be in the minds of some as devoid of any intent to do 
wrong as a Sunday-school banner. On the other hand, if 
used as a flag of actual rebels, it may be terrible indeed. 
There is no reason why it should alarm people in time of 
peace. It is with the red flag as it is with the English flag. 
It would to-day give no anxiety to see a man unfurl a British 
flag in New York ; possibly one year from to-day it would 
cost him his life. 

It is difficult and perhaps impossible to trace out the first 
germs of Revolutionary Socialism in America, although it is 



216 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

certain that it is not descended from early American com- 
munism, to which it has little resemblance. The influence 
of the later movement on the earlier, has, however, been 
more perceptible, but even that has been comparatively 
slight. The first cause of the recent acceptance of socialism 
by parties of workingmen in America must be sought in the 
economic conditions of the country, for no theory of society 
ever found adherents enough to attract the general notice of 
the public, which did not have some close connection with the 
historical facts of the period. The^phenomena must have 
existed to give rise to those generalizations, which, taken 
together, constituted the theory of society in question. 
True, these phenomena may have been unnaturally separated 
from other unseen phenomena, and their true import may 
have been sadly misunderstood; some faulty classification 
and over-hasty and otherwise imperfect generalizations may 
have led to erroneous conclusions, and mistaken or even 
criminal actions ; nevertheless, it holds true, that no philo- 
sophical or social system can be understood without an 
examination of the life of the people among whom it arose, 
and of the times when it gained adherents. 

Socialism has begun to excite alarm in America, and its 
advocates are found in all parts of the country ; but it is a 
gross mistake to treat it as a purely artificial or imported 
product. It could make no headway until the march of 
industrial forces had opened the way for the operation of 
ideas, new and strange to the great masses. What the 
nature of the progress of these forces was, is well known. 
A wonderful epoch of discovery and invention had brought 
to the service of man the mighty powers of nature in such 
manner as to accomplish results surpassing the dreams of 
enthusiasts and the operations of the magician's wand in the 
fairy tale. This ushered in a period of unparalleled increase 



BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 217 

of wealth which was sufficient to transform the face of the 
earth in a single generation, and its magnificent fruits made 
optimists of men. 

But all the products of the age were not beneficent. The 
new ways required a displacement and readjustment of labor 
and capital, under which many suffered greviously. Doubt- 
less progress led to the common good "in the end," as 
people say, but many perished in the way before the end was 
reached. Much capital which could not be withdrawn from 
its old use, was lost, to the impoverishment of its owners. 
To take a single concrete example, let one think of the inns 
which fifty years ago flourished along the great mail and 
stage routes. How many were ruined in the improvements 
which George Stephenson and his locomotive have finally 
made a daily necessity? Again, advanced processes and 
labor-saving machinery frequently throw men entirely out of 
employment, though after a time the demand for laborers 
may increase immensely, as has occurred in the case of spin- 
ning and weaving. Quite as serious in its ultimate conse- 
quences is the fact that acquired skill was so often rendered 
superfluous. A few rose to great wealth, but the masses 
knew what the newspapers did not chronicle, namely, the fall 
of many small producers and once-skilled artisans to the 
condition of laborers. 1 Great good comes to many as the 
result of progress, for if the picture is not so bright as some 
imagine, it is not so dark as others are often inclined 

1 I have seen it stated that the number of servants and other em- 
ployees in the United States has increased three times as rapidly as the 
population. There are no statistics which could be relied upon to give 
us the exact data, and I have not at hand those which would enable 
me to form even an approximate estimate. The subject deserves atten- 
tion, and I simply give the statement for what it is worth without my 
indorsement. 



218 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

to think; but even those who gained, frequently suffered 
temporarily. 

For the time being men suffer, and the time being is an 
important factor to men who live from hand to mouth, as is 
the case with a great part of mankind. Those who suffered, 
often complained bitterly, and at times uttered dire threats 
which were occasionally executed in part at least. All this 
has long been a familiar fact in Europe. From the termina- 
tion of the Napoleonic wars till the discovery of gold in 
California and Australia, was a period of distress in England, 
and what Sismondi saw in the crisis of 1819, when on a visit 
to that country, produced such an effect upon him that he 
felt compelled to throw overboard the political economy of 
Adam Smith, to which he had previously adhered, and to 
write his " Nouveaux Principes d'Economie Politique." The 
example of England is not an isolated one. 

In the United States, however, there was abundance of 
fertile, unoccupied land on every side, and the undeveloped 
resources of the country were boundless, both in extent and 
in their potentialities for the production of wealth. While 
some suffered doubtless, they were comparatively few, and 
the tremendous strides with which America was advancing in 
power and prosperity, caused them generally to be over- 
looked. The bloom and fruitage of the age regarded from 
a materialistic, economic standpoint seemed almost wholly 
beneficent, and Americans, as a rule, were optimists. But a 
change was impending. A severe crisis in 1873, with all its 
train of varied disasters, checked economic progress, and 
brought the crushing weight of poverty upon tens of thou- 
sands. This was not the first industrial crash in America, to 
be sure, but it is doubtful whether any other followed on an 
era of such prosperity. 

Then the wealth of a few had increased enormously dur- 



BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 219 

ing the Civil War, while luxury, such as had scarce entered 
the day-dreams of our fathers, extended itself over the land. 
Never before had there been seen in America such contrasts 
between fabulous wealth and absolute penury. Population 
was denser, and there was not exactly the same freedom, the 
same ease of movement. In short, from one cause and 
another, in many quarters bright visions gave place to gloomy 
forebodings, and thus Americans were better prepared than 
ever before to listen to those who advocated the most radical 
social reconstruction, and repudiated the reforms of trades- 
unionists and others who desired only an improvement of 
existing institutions. It is now left to inquire who sowed the 
seeds of socialism, which have sprung up, or are even now 
sprouting and sending forth shoots below the surface. 

The socialism of to-day may be said to date from the 
European revolutions of 1848, 1 all of which soon terminated 
disastrously for the people as opposed to their rulers. Many 
German refugees sought our shores, and some of them were 
ardent socialists and communists, who endeavored to propa- 
gate their ideas. Wilhelm Weitling, a tailor, born in Magde- 
burg in 1808, was prominent among these. Weitling visited 
France and Switzerland as a journeyman, during his " Wan- 
derjahre," and became acquainted with the doctrines of the 
French communists. German as he was, it was natural that 
he should revise the work of his predecessors, and strip 
French communism of its fantastic garb before presenting it, 
as he soon did, to his countrymen in various works. 2 It was 

1 My book, u French and German Socialism in Modern Times," 
carries socialism back to the French Revolution of the last century, but 
the earlier socialistic movements therein described are already regarded 
as defunct. 

2 "Das Evangelium des armen Sunders." Bern, 1841 ; "Garantien 
der Harmonie und Freiheit." Vivis, 1842; " Die Menscheit, vvie sic 
ist und wie sie sein sollte." Bern, 1843. 



220 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

thus that Weitling, who is occasionally called the " Father of 
German Communism," became one of the first to scatter 
those seeds of economic radicalism which have brought 
forth such large increase in the social democracy of our own 
times. The Swiss and German authorities could not forego 
the temptation to make a martyr of Weitling, and he was 
thrown into prison in both countries. His last imprison- 
ment was in Germany, and he was given his freedom on 
condition that he should emigrate to America, 1 which he 
accordingly did. Weitling founded a workingman's society 
in New York not long after his arrival, which was called the 
Arbeiterbund, with headquarters in Beekman Street. A 
newspaper was published by these men for three or four 
years, called Die Republik der Arbeiter. Associated with 
Weitling at this time was Dr. Edmund Ignatz Koch, a man 
who was active in the European revolutionary days just 
passed, and who had brought with him to the United States, 
if my memory serves me correctly, a thousand copies of one 
of the works of the French communist, Blanqui. It was 
the intention of the Arbeiterbund to establish a communistic 
settlement in Wisconsin, but internal dissensions prevented 
the execution of this plan. Weitling, however, was for a 
short time connected with a colony of communists in Clayton 
County, Iowa, which had been formed by Henry Koch, an 
ardent disciple of Fourier, and an admirer of Albert Bris- 
bane and Horace Greeley. 2 Weitling finally abandoned his 

1 The date of his liberation on this condition is given as 1845 i n a 
newspaper article which lies before me. Elsewhere it is stated that he 
was among those who left Germany after the events of 1848. How- 
ever this may be, the emigrants who fled after the latter year first gave 
him a favorable opportunity to continue his propaganda in America. 

2 Henry Koch's career is one common among German Americans. 
Born in Baireuth in 1800, he learned the trade of watchmaker, and 



BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIAIISM IN AMERICA. 221 

communistic ideas, and devoted himself to his trade, to 
inventions designed to improve the sewing-machine, and to 
astronomical studies as a recreation. 

It is said that he invented several valuable contrivances, 
especially one for making button-holes, which were, however, 
all stolen from him. His efforts to protect his rights involved 
him in lawsuits which consumed what little property he had. 
His death took place in 187*1. 

Another one of these refugees was Weydemeyer, a friend 
and disciple of Carl Marx, in the dissemination of whose 
views he was aided by H. Meyer, a German merchant. 1 
Weydemeyer served with distinction in the Union Army 
during the late war, and after its close was elected auditor 
of St. Louis, where he died. 

The first large society to adopt and propagate socialism in 
America was composed of the German Gymnastic Unions 
(Turnvereine). The Socialistic Turnverein of New York 
drew up a constitution for an association, to be composed of 
the various local gymnastic unions, and published it in 1850. 
A preliminary gathering of a few delegates was held in New 
York in the Shakespeare Hotel, then the headquarters of 
" progressive " elements among the Germans. 2 It was 
finally decided to call a meeting of delegates, to be held in 
Philadelphia, on Oct, 5 of the same year, to effect a perma- 

followed it in his native town until participation in politics of too radi- 
cal a character brought him to prison. After his release he came to 
America, landing in Baltimore in 1832. He spent most of his life in 
Dubuque, where he was much liked, especially among the children, 
who called him " Papa Koch." He served as captain in the Mexican 
War. His death occurred in 1879. 

1 For several of these data I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. 
F. A. Sorge of Hoboken, NJ. 

2 It was kept by Joseph Fickler, a refugee from Baden, who was 
prominent in 1848. 



222 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

nent organization. Several Turnvereine acted on the sug- 
gestion, and among others, delegates were present from New 
York, Boston, and Baltimore. The first name adopted 
was " Associated Gymnastic Unions of North America " 
(Vereinegte Turnvereine Nordamerikas) , which was, how- 
ever, changed the following year to " Socialistic Gymnas- 
tic Union " (Socialistischer Turnerbund). The platform 
adopted proclaimed the promotion of socialism and the 
support of the social democratic party to be its chief pur- 
pose. The education of the mind was to accompany the 
training of the body, that the whole^an might be developed 
in accordance with the maxim, mens sana in corpore sano ; 
and this idea has always been prominent among the mem- 
bers of this society in America. The intention at first seems 
to have been to prepare men to return to Germany, and 
take part in the struggles for liberty which they thought 
would ere long begin again. The number of local gymnastic 
unions in America, in 185 1, so far as known, was seventeen ; 
of which the three largest were the Baltimore Social Demo- 
cratic Turnverein with 278 members, the Cincinnati Turnge- 
meinde with 222 members, and the New York Socialistic 
Turnverein with 128. A monthly organ was published, 
called the Turnzeitung. The Turnerbund continued to 
grow slowly in strength until the Civil War, although internal 
dissensions divided it for a few years into two sections. As 
might be expected, it supported, first, the free soil move- 
ment, then the Republican party, for it was always found on 
the side of freedom. As a consequence its members were 
obliged to contend with the opposition to abolitionism added 
to a wide-spread hatred of foreigners. They were time and 
time again attacked by rowdies who, in Philadelphia, were 
even assisted by the police. However, they generally pro- 
tected themselves vigorously against assault, and on several 
occasions used their arms. 






BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 223 

A number of the Turners were indicted in Philadelphia, 
but were not brought to trial, as the authorities concluded 
that it was best to let the matter drop. In 1855, tne 
Turners were again attacked by the rowdies and loafers of 
Columbus, and several were wounded ; but they turned their 
firearms against their enemies, and one of them paid the 
penalty for his rashness with his life. Nineteen Turners 
were tried for assault with intent to kill, but were found 
not guilty. The Cincinnati Turngemeinde and the unions 
in Newport and Covington, Ky., held a celebration in 
May, 1856, in Covington, and were attacked by a mob 
armed with clubs, stones, and slungshots ; and among the 
assailants were a police marshal and deputy marshal, both 
of whom were wounded, together with others on both sides. 
One hundred and seven Turners were arrested, and thirty- 
five indicted by the grand jury and tried; but again all 
were pronounced innocent. 

The beginning of the Civil War offered the Turnerbund 
the opportunity they desired, to earn a good name for 
themselves and for their fellow-countrymen. The Turners 
from every quarter responded to Lincoln's call for troops, 
some of the unions sending more than half their mem- 
bers. In New York they organized a complete regiment 
in a few days, and in many places they sent one or 
more companies. There were three companies in the First 
Missouri Regiment, while the Seventeenth consisted almost 
altogether of Turners. The Turners of Leavenworth 
and Cincinnati also deserve honorable mention. It is 
estimated that from forty to fifty per cent of all Turners 
capable of bearing arms took part in the war. Prominent 
among them was General Franz Sigel. This depletion of 
the local unions suspended all activities on the part of the 
socialistic Turnerbund, until the close of the war, when it 



224 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

was reorganized under the name of the North American 
Gymnastic Union (Nordamerikanischer Turnerbund). It 
now numbers about 22,000 members, owns property valued 
at $2,409,375/ including 140 gymnasiums (Turnhallen), and 
instructs over 16,000 boys and girls in schools, and supports 
in Milwaukee the best school for training teachers of gym- 
nastics in the United States. The Turnerbund is no longer 
nominally socialistic ; but it recommends the careful study 
of social questions, and has adopted resolutions in favor of 
radical reforms. In its platform the aims of the Board are 
stated to be these : the development; of men strong in mind 
and body, and the development of a true democracy. In 
accordance with its general conservative character 2 it de- 
clares that social, religious, and political reforms can only 
be secured by the spread of education and morality. 

The sovereignty of the people is declared to be inalien- 
able, and reforms are recommended which aim to realize 
this doctrine, "As everything is for the people, everything 
should happen through the people." Many of the polit- 
ical changes recommended, aim at the introduction of Swiss 
democratic institutions among us ; in particular, the replace- 
ment of Senate and President by a Federal council. The 
recall of legislators by the people is further recommended, 
and also the abolition of all complicated modes of repre- 
sentation and artificial delegation of power. 

The general convention likewise recommends, "the pro- 
tection of labor against spoliation, and the adoption of 
means to secure to it its real product ; the sanitary protec- 
tion of citizens by control over factories, by protection 
against adulteration of food, and sanitary inspection of 

1 These statistics are all taken from the report of 1885. 

2 I mean, that it advocates the attainment of radical reforms only by 
conservative methods. 



BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 22S 

houses." Further, " the right of the several States to adopt 
laws or to take measures which conflict with the spirit of 
the Constitution of the United States, especially such as 
relate to the liberty of the press, to religious affairs, or to 
the right of assembly, should be abolished." Child labor is 
condemned. Debates and lectures are held to improve the 
mind, and to educate the people to a comprehension of the 
true nature of the topics of the day. One question recom- 
mended for discussion is, " whether or not a shortening of 
the hours of labor, and the establishment by law of a 
normal working day, are effective means of ameliorating social 
disorders." 

A Club of Communists was founded in New York in 1857, 
by Germans, mostly refugees ; and in June of the following 
year its members instituted a celebration to commemorate 
the insurrection in Paris, in June, 1848. Several thousand 
men and women of various nationalities participated in the 
ceremonies. Their club came near suspension during the 
Civil War, but in 1866 and 1867 a union was effected with 
followers of Lassalle, a small band of whom had effected an 
organization in New York in 1867 ; for a ripple on the sur- 
face of the waters which Ferdinand Lassalle had troubled 
reached even our shores. The "Social Party" was thus 
started in 1868, and in 1869 it became affiliated with the 
International Workingmen's Association through the General 
Council of London. This was the old International founded 
by Carl Marx, 1 many " sections " of which sprang up in 
different parts of the United States, between 1870 and 1873, 
and connections were sought with the trades-unions of the 
country, and indeed actually formed. As early as 1869 a 

1 It is necessary, for brevity's sake, to assume that the reader is 
already familiar with the history of the old International. A descrip- 
tion of it is given in Ely's " French and German Socialism," chap. x. 



226 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

delegate of the North American Central Committee of the 
International attended regularly the New York City Work- 
ingmen's Union, composed of delegates from trades-unions 
aggregating a membership of thirty or forty thousand. A 
German daily newspaper, Die Arbeiter Union, was pub- 
lished in New York, from 1868 to 1871, but I do not know 
whether it was an outspoken advocate of socialism or not. 
German weeklies were established in New York and Chi- 
cago in 1873. The Chicago weekly, Der Vorbote, is still 
alive, and, although originally socialistic, has become in 
recent years a pronounced advocate of anarchy. The Inter- 
national of Marx charged several secretaries with the work 
of forming connections with American labor organizations, 
and J. George Eccarius, the General Secretary of the Central 
Council, wrote a letter to the National Labor Union, when 
in session in Philadelphia in 1869, inviting that body to send 
a delegate to the congress of the International Working- 
men's Association to be held in Basle, Switzerland, in Sep- 
tember of the same year. The invitation was accepted, a 
delegate, Cameron by name, was sent ; and thus an apparent 
union was effected between European Socialism and an Amer- 
ican labor organization, representing half a million laborers." x 
But this union was more apparent than real, and implied 
anything rather than the conversion of American laborers to 
socialism. It must be remembered that the old Interna- 
tional sought a federation of labor and actually secured 
the co-operation for a time of the English trades-unions as 
well as many American societies ; but it insisted on the 
acceptance of no social philosophy on the part of these 
various bodies. 2 The letter of Eccarius, for example, based 

1 The number represented by the delegates to the anuual meeting 
of the National Labor Union in New York in 1868 is said to have 
been 640,000. 

2 Professor de Laveleye calls these adhesions " purely Platonic." 



BE G INNINGS OF MODERN SO CIALISM IN AMERICA. 227 

the arguments in favor of the representation of the National 
Labor Union at the congress of the International on the 
desirability of a co-operation between the workingmen of 
Europe and America to help regulate emigration. " There 
is a particular reason/' wrote Eccarius, "why you should 
strain a point to send a delegate, — the emigration mania. 
Once a year during our congress week all the scribes of 
Europe are busy with our doings. A sketch of what things 
are in the New World, given by an American, would not only 
find its way into all the papers, but would greatly tend to dis- 
abuse many of their illusions of the happiness in store for 
them if they could only manage to cross the big lake. It is 
the policy of those who have an interest in keeping things as 
they are, to induce as many as possible to leave, since their 
very presence endangers the continuance of the existing vil- 
lainy, and in the New World they are used to perpetuate the 
existing villainy, and their presence tends to hamper, if not 
to frustrate, the onward march of the labor movement." 

In 187 1 a new impulse was received from the French ref- 
ugees who came to America after the suppression of the 
uprising of the commune of Paris, and brought with them a 
spirit of violence, but a more important event in this early 
period was the order of the congress of the International 
held in the Hague in 1872, which transferred to New York 
the " General Council " of the Association. Modern social- 
ism had then undoubtedly begun to exist in America. The 
first proclamation of the council from their new headquar- 
ters was an appeal to workingmen " to emancipate labor and 
eradicate all international and national strife." l 

1 The authority for this statement may be found in an interview 
which a New York Herald reporter held with Mr. Leopold Jonas, a 
leading New York member of the Socialistic Labor Party. See " Our 
American Socialists," New York Herald^ May 19, 1884. 



228 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

In the spring ot 1872 "an imposing demonstration " in 
favor of eight hours took place in New York City. The 
paper before me estimates the number of those taking part 
in the procession through the principal streets at twenty 
thousand, and among the other societies were the various 
New York sections of the International Workingmen's 
Association bearing a banner with their motto " Working- 
men of all Countries, Unite!" The following year wit- 
nessed the disasters in the industrial and commercial world, 
to which reference has already been made ; and the dis- 
tress consequent thereupon was an important aid to the 
socialists in their propaganda. The "Exceptional Law" 
passed against socialists, by the German Parliament in 1878, 
drove many socialists from Germany to this country, and 
these have strengthened the cause of American socialism 
through membership in trades-unions and in the Socialistic 
Labor Party. 

There have been several changes among the socialists in 
party organization and name since 1873, and national con- 
ventions or congresses have met from time to time. Their 
dates and places of meeting have been Philadelphia, 1874, 
Pittsburg, 1876, 1 Newark, 1877, Allegheny City, 1880, Balti- 
more and Pittsburg, 1883, and Cincinnati, 1885. The name 
Socialistic Labor Party was adopted in 1877 at the Newark 
Convention. In 1883 the split between the moderates and 
extremists had become definite, and the latter held their 
congress in Pittsburg, and the former in Baltimore. 

The separation between the two bodies of socialists is a 
matter of interest. A similar separation took place in the 
congress of the International at the Hague in 1872, between 

1 In July of the same year an international meeting of labor organi- 
zations was held in Philadelphia on occasion of the Centennial Expo- 
sition. 



BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 119 

the followers of Marx, who represented in many respects the 
spirit and methods of the present Socialistic Labor Party, 
and those of Bakounine, who were anarchists like the mem- 
bers of the existing International in the United States. It is 
altogether probable that the feeling of animosity between 
the adherents of the two directions was present in New 
York from the beginning of the operations of the " Council " 
transferred in the same year to that city. But for some time 
they succeeded in working together, and hopes of a perma- 
nent union were certainly not abandoned until after the 
advent of John Most on our shores in December, 1882. 
Most has proved a firebrand among American socialists, and 
was early denounced by those who felt repelled by his mad 
expressions of violence, and saw that he was doing their 
cause much harm; but it was still impossible to pass a 
formal vote repudiating him in the congress of the Social- 
istic Labor Party in Baltimore in 1883. During the follow- 
ing year the San Francisco Truth still thought it worth while 
to advocate a union of all discontented proletarians, but 
acrimony and bitterness between representatives of opposing 
views continued to increase \ and when the terrible outrages 
in London, in January of 1885, were condemned in terms 
of severity by the Socialistic Labor Party and applauded by 
the Internationalists, all hopes of united action vanished, and 
the animosity between the two became so intense that they 
came to blows in a meeting called in New York by the mod- 
erates to protest against the recent use of dynamite. Shortly 
after that there was a disturbance between the International- 
ists and the members of the Socialistic Labor Party in a 
public meeting in Baltimore ; and the terrible affair of May 
4, 1886, when the Chicago Internationalists endeavored to 
resist the police by the use of dynamite, terminated all pos- 
sibility of joint action — even if there could previously have 



230 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

been any remote hope of it ; for that was denounced as crim- 
inal folly by the Socialistic Labor Party. The warfare be- 
tween the two factions has now become quite as bitter as 
between them and the competitive society they seek to over- 
throw. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 

I. The International Working People's Association. 

THE Internationalists, at their congress in Pittsburg, 
adopted unanimously a manifesto or declaration of 
motives and principles, often called the Pittsburg Procla- 
mation, in which they describe their ultimate goal in these 
words : — 

"What we would achieve is, therefore, plainly and 
simply, — 

"First, Destruction of the existing class rule, by all 
means, t. e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and inter- 
national action. 

" Second, Establishment of a free society based upon 
co-operative organization of production. 

"Third, Free exchange of equivalent products by and 
between the productive organizations without commerce 
aud profit-mongery. 

"Fourth, Organization of education on a secular, scien- 
tific and equal basis for both sexes. 

" Fifth, Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race. 

" Sixth, Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts 
between the autonomous (independent) communes and 
associations, resting on a federalistic basis." l 

1 Free contract, it is to be observed, in the language of the Inter- 
nationalists, means not freedom of contract in the present sense, but a 
contract which may be fulfilled or not, according to the good pleasure 
of the parties concerned. The one who breaks it, suffers no legal 
penalty. 



232 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Here we have in a few words the dream of the Anar- 
chists, as these Internationalists call themselves, and it has 
been well characterized by Mr. Hyndman, as "individu- 
alism gone mad." It may be well to explain the ideas con- 
tained in this programme under the two heads, political and 
economic. 

First, Their political philosophy is pure negation or 
nihilism in the strict sense of the word. It is the doctrine 
of laissezfaire carried to its logical outcome. What say our 
advocates of the "let-alone " policy about government and 
the state? They assure us that the less government the 
better, and that the state is but a necessary evil at best. To 
this the Anarchists reply : Very true, but why should we tol- 
erate the least needless evil ? We hold that government of 
any kind is worse than useless, and that the state is but 
another name for oppression. " One of Jefferson's maxims 
was ' the best government is that which governs least.' If 
this be true, then 

' The very best government of all 
Is that which governs not at all.' " 1 

We recognize no right of any individual or of any body of 
men to interfere with us, and we will have neither state nor 
laws. We are prepared to fight for liberty without restraint 
or control. Our ideal is anarchy. It is a holy cause, and 
to it we have devoted our lives. 

Each member of society is, in this new world, to be abso- 
lutely free. As gregarious animals, and for the sake of vol- 
untary co-operation, men will naturally form themselves into 
independent self-governing communes or townships, into 
which the whole of mankind will be ultimately resolved. 

1 Quoted with approval by the London Anarchist, under the head- 
ing, " Sound Sense," from the American newspaper Lucifer. 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 233 

These communes will for the sake of convenience be 
grouped loosely into federations, which, however, will have 
no authority whatever. While each commune is at liberty 
to sever its connection with the common body at pleasure, 
it is thought that the social nature of man will be a sufficient 
adhesive force to hold them together. All regulation and 
control centre in free and voluntary and self-enforced contract. 
Second, The economic ideas of the Internationalists as 
expressed in their resume of their aims, are " co-operative 
organization of production," and " free exchange of equiv- 
alent products by and between the productive organizations 
without commerce and profit-mongery." But when devel- 
oped, these brief propositions imply several radical de- 
mands, viz., "free lands," "free tools" and "free money." 
Rent falls away, as there is no authority to enforce its pay- 
ment, and laborers lay hold of and use freely the means of 
production (capital), as anarchism recognizes no power to 
prevent this. Possession takes the place of property, and 
possession lasts only so long as means of production pos- 
sessed are actually used by their possessor. This ends at 
once "capitalism" and "landlordism," and leaves room 
only for united labor. Workingmen, it is supposed, will 
naturally group themselves into " productive organizations," 
where each one will work as long as he pleases and receive 
"labor-money," or credits indicating the length of labor- 
time. If our present terms should be retained, a dollar 
might represent the toil of one hundred minutes, and one 
dollar would always equal another. " Socialism advocates 
that the time and service of one man is equal ultimately to 
the time and service of any other man ; hence, the nearest 
approach to exact justice is equal pay for equal time and 
expenditure of equal energy." l 

1 From " Socialism " by Starkweather and Wilson in Lovell's Li- 
brary, No. 461, p. 29, cf. also pp. 78-80. This doctrine of equality 



234 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Commerce is replaced by a common store-house to which 
all social products are carried, and where their value is 
determined by labor-time. A bushel of potatoes might be 
quoted at twenty-five minutes, for example, in which case 
any purchaser presenting a note for one hundred minutes 
would receive his potatoes, and seventy-five minutes in 
change. 

Thus the laborer receives the full value of all he produces, 
and profits, called legalized robbery or unpaid labor, are 
abolished. It is supposed that a few hours a day — one 
writer mentions three 1 — would suffice to produce all the 
goods needed by society. In the words of the Pittsburg 
Proclamation : " This order of things allows production to 
regulate itself according to the demands of the whole people, 
so that nobody need work more than a few hours a day, and 
that all nevertheless can satisfy their needs. Hereby time 
and opportunity are given for opening to the people the way 
to the highest civilization ; the privileges of higher intelligence 
fall with the privileges of wealth and birth." 

Another point which deserves attention is the preponderat- 
ing influence the Internationalists, even more than other 
socialists, give to external circumstances in the formation of 
character. If their attention is called to the crime and 
wrong-doing in present society as a proof of the need of a 
repressive authority, they reply that it will be quite different 
in a condition of anarchy, because our existing institutions 
are the cause of the evil which afflicts us now ; in particular 
do they necessitate the poverty of the many, and pover f y 
is the chief source of what we call sin. " Socialism, " say 

seems to be unanimously accepted by the Anarchists, though it is not 
maintained by all socialists, and it must in fairness be acknowledged 
that it forms no necessary part of socialism. 

1 Benjamin Franklin, I believe, said four hours. 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS, 23^) 

Starkweather and Wilson, in their pamphlet, 1 " would abolish 
poverty by preventing it, by removing its causes. As poverty 
is the cause directly or indirectly of all crime, therefore, by 
the abolition of poverty, crime would become almost un- 
known, and with the crime would disappear all the lice, 
leeches, vampires, and vermin that fatten on its filth ; such 
as the entire legal fraternity, soldiers, police, spies, judges, 
sheriffs, priests, preachers, quack doctors, etc., etc." Never- 
theless, even an Anarchist is forced to admit the possibility 
of an occasional crime against individual or society, and in 
such case has nothing better to offer than the unrestrained 
exercise of brute force. As they now advocate the extermi- 
nation of opponents and admire mob law, there is nothing left 
for them save the destruction of those whom they consider 
their enemies in any and every form of society. 

The truth is, however, that most Anarchists object in 
reality only to present state-forms and wish to replace them 
with new institutions of equal authority. Some of them ap- 
parently picture the future to themselves as the exclusive 
domination of labor organizations, and overlook two facts : 
first, if all should not be embraced in these associations, 
those outside of them would be in subjection to a power in 
the creation of which they would have no voice, and over 
which they could exercise no control ; second, the state 
would by no means be abolished, even if all were included 
in some labor organization, for then labor organizations 
would themselves constitute the state. 2 It is thus not 

1 L. c, p. 30. 
I think the English co-operators fall into a similar error. They 
protest strenuously that they repudiate state socialism, and yet they 
expect co-operation to absorb all the industry of the country. In 
this event co-operative societies would practically constitute the state, 
and the result would be socialism, though the goal would be reached 
by a different route from that proposed by others. 



236 THE LABOR MO VEMENT. 

the state in itself to which they object, but our present 
state. 1 

Yet tnere is a difference among the Anarchists with 
respect to authority. Some perceive the weakness of the 
Anarchistic Communists and repudiate all authority for the 
future as well as for the present. These believe in 
" Individual Sovereignty/' and call themselves Individual 
Anarchists. Their general principle is that each person 
is to do, without let or hindrance, absolutely what seems 
good to him, and no public authority is ever on any 
account to interfere. There shall, for example, be no 
public banks, or bank regulations, nc public mint, no 
public post-office ; but whosoever pleases may carry let- 
ters, issue paper money, or coin silver and gold. These 
Individual Anarchists or " Boston " Anarchists, as they are 
also called, from their strongest centre, have formed no 
party, and could consistently form no party in the ordi- 
nary sense. As tolerance, however, it is frequently said, 
can tolerate everything save intolerance, so liberty, in their 
opinion, can tolerate everything save an invasion of liberty, 
and that, they hold, may be repelled by voluntary organ- 
ization in any practicable way, even by the use of dynamite, 
if it be necessary. Voluntary associations are contemplated 
by the Boston Anarchists for the defence of person and of 
property of individuals, but common property is condemned 
as communism. Those who belong to these associations 
will submit voluntarily to their rules, and disobedience will 
constitute a withdrawal. Absolutely free competition is the 
ideal of Individual Anarchy, but the present competition is 
rejected as unfair. " Competition under liberty is beneficent 

1 One Anarchist writes me that the first chapter of Stepniak's 
" Russia Under the Tzars " contains a description of what he considers 
an ideal society. This chapter treats of the " Mir." 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 237 

co-operation. It makes cost the limit of price. 1 It opens 
thf way for every man to prove his fitness and survive on his 
merits. The present order of competition under the state 
permits the unfittest to survive on his demerits.' ' 

" The all important principle at this juncture," writes one 
of this school, " is Liberty, which as soon as sufficient co- 
operation offers, the Anarchists propose to make a reality by 
passive resistance to its violation through suffrage, taxation, 
and monopoly." What is our present government which 
must be overthrown ? It is " a compulsory association prin- 
cipally for invasion of person and property, dependent for 
its very existence upon the bottom invasion, compulsory 
taxation." 2 

A Boston Anarchist writes me this : " The disciples of 
Josiah Warren and Proudhon are the only real Anarchists, 
and the only men in the labor movement who start with 
certain fundamentals, and test every question by them, — in 
other words, who act in accordance with a definite philosophy." 

The present chief representative of the Individual Anar- 
chists, is Benjamin R. Tucker, the editor of Liberty. Tucker 
is a devoted disciple of Proudhon, and proposes to translate 
his complete works. He has already published volume I., 
a translation of the celebrated treatise "What is Property? " 

In response to a letter of inquiry, a friend writes me as 
follows : — 3 

1 By means of " free banking," as advocated by Proudhon. See 
" Mutual Banking," by William B. Greene, for sale at the office of 
Liberty, Boston. 

2 Liberty of Boston, Jan. 3, 1 885. 

3 This extreme courtesy on the part of a busy man is only one of 
the many instances of kindness with which I have met in the prepara- 
tion of this book. My experience in authorship as well as in the dis- 
charge of the other duties of life, has borne out anything rather than 
the hypothesis that men are actuated only by motives of selfishness. 



238 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

" Warrer was a descendant of General Warren of Bunker 
Hill fame. He was born in either Brookline or Brighton 
(near Boston), and at the time of his death in 1874 he was 
nearly seventy-five years old. He developed an unusual 
musical genius at an early age, and was a skilful player on 
several instruments. 

" The first event of importance in his life, according to 
Tucker, was when Robert Owen, the socialist and manufac- 
turer, came to this country and founded a communistic 
colony at New Harmony, Ind. Qwen was backed by his 
own millions and by a fine class of supporters, and among 
others Warren was carried away by his scheme, and joined 
the community. In a year or two the famous experiment 
failed, because the projectors spent their time in making and 
re-making constitutions instead of planting potatoes. 

" Warren was discouraged and went into the woods, sat 
on a log, and thought the matter over. He came to the 
conclusion that the scheme failed because the individual had 
been sunk in the community, because there were no in- 
dividual interests, rights, and responsibility. It occurred to 
him that the real social reform lay in more individualization 
than is found in the existing social system, in a separation 
of individual interests. The sovereignty of the individual 
was the first fundamental principle of his social philosophy. 
John Stuart Mill in his autobiography acknowledges his in- 
debtedness to Warren and to Wilhelm von Humboldt for the 
basic idea of his own work on liberty. Warren's second 
fundamental principle was an economic one, — that cost is 
the true basis of price, or ' cost the limit of price. 1 

"This was about 1827. Warren then determined to test 
the cost theory, and he started a store in Cincinnati (at the 
corner of Fourth and Elm Streets?), which he conducted for 
two years, doing business to the amount of one hundred and 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 239 

fifty thousand dollars. The plan and history of the store are 
found detailed in Warren's work on ' Practical Details of 
Equitable Commerce ' (now out of print) . The store was 
open during 1828-29. It was in a new country when busi- 
ness was not centralized as now, and the retailer realized 
large profits. Warren marked his goods with the cost and 
added seven per cent for rent, fuel, etc., exclusive of the 
labor of himself and the employees. This seven per cent 
was carefully computed, and was invariable, but it allowed 
no profit. A clock was kept in the store, and every cus- 
tomer was timed and charged so much an hour for the time 
of the salesman. The charge for time was reduced with the 
increase of business. Finally Warren issued his own money 
in the shape of labor notes (described in his works), which 
he exchanged for the labor notes of his customers. His 
notes became a popular circulating medium. 

" The experiment satisfied him, and he closed his store, 
and later published his principal work, ' True Civilization/ 
in which he announced and developed these principles. 
The book was published somewhere in the '30s, and War- 
ren set the type for it himself. It is now in print. 1 He was 
the inventor of the present system of stereotyping for book 
work. He also invented a system of musical notation which 
was pronounced by Lowell Mason superior to that now in 
use. 

"Warren then went to a place in Ohio, and started a com- 
munity on his peculiar principles. In 1850 or thereabouts, 
he converted Stephen Pearl Andrews, who wrote 'The 
Science of Society/ which Warren called a better statement 
of his principles than his own. Later he founded ' Modern 
Times/ a community on Long Island, but neither community 
amounted to much. His followers thought the community 
1 Part I. only; for sale at office of Liberty, 



240 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

idea a mistake. After i860 he published Part II. of ? True 
Civilization/ which is out of print, the plates having been 
destroyed in the great Boston fire in 1872. Part III. was 
published later, and is also out of print. Part I., which is 
now on the market, is, however, the most important and 
valuable. 

" Warren in his later years lived a sort of hermit life, but 
spent his time in the propagandism of his ideas. He died 
in Charlestown, now a part of Boston, at the house of E. D. 
Linton, one of his disciples. Some/ years previously he had 
lived at Princeton, Mass. 

" Out of his teachings has grown the school of social 
reformers in this country known as the Individualistic Anar- 
chists, who consider him as the thinker in this country corre- 
sponding with Proudhon. The two were almost identical in 
their fundamental ideas. Warren's greatest strength as an 
agitator lay in his conversation with individuals, and most 
of his converts were made in the parlor, where he displayed 
the greatest keenness in explanations and answering objec- 
tions." 

To return from the digression .concerning the Boston 
Anarchists, it may be noticed, as an external peculiarity of 
the International Working People's Association, that they 
occasionally use the black flag as an emblem of their cause. 
When it was unfurled on Thanksgiving day in 1884 i* 1 Chi- 
cago, August Spies, one of the anarchists now on trial for 
the murder of policemen on May 4, addressed the assembled 
people in these words, — 

" It is the first time that emblem of hunger and starvation 
has been unfurled on American soil. It represents that 
these people have begun to reach the condition of the older 
countries. We have got to strike down these robbers that 
are robbing the working people." 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 241 

While the economic ideas of the Anarchists are so vague 
that it is difficult to describe them more precisely than has 
been done already, it is the less necessary to do so from the 
fact that the chief part of their programme is a plea for 
action, for revolution ; for destruction, rather than construc- 
tion, as they hold that the former must precede the latter. 

It is to be noticed that they attempt to realize their politi- 
cal ideal as far as possible in their own plan of organization. 
The International is composed of independent " groups,' ' 
with no central authority or executive, both of which expres- 
sions many of them detest. The only bond of union between 
them is found in their common ideas, in their press, their 
congresses and local organizations, and a Bureau of Informa- 
tion, formed by the Chicago Groups, which appears to be 
the nearest approach to a centre of life and activity. 

The manifesto of the Internationalists has been mentioned, 
and quotations from it given. It is, however, necessary to 
consult their press to obtain a more complete survey of their 
views. They have several newspapers, of which the follow- 
ing are the most prominent : Die Freiheit, Most's New York 
weekly, now in its eighth year ; Der Vorbote, a weekly, Die 
Fackel, a Sunday paper, and Die Chicagoer Arbeiterzeitung, 
a daily, all three published by the Socialistic Publishing Com- 
pany of Chicago. The Vorbote, in its thirteenth year, is the 
oldest of their organs. The Alarm, a weekly, in its second 
year, is published at the same place, and is edited by A. R. 
Parsons. 1 Its purpose is to disseminate the most extreme 
revolutionary teachings among English-speaking laborers. 
Kansas sends us Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, a journal of like 
tendencies. Truth, " a Journal of the Poor," was published 

1 Perhaps it ought now to be said was edited. I have not seen a 
copy since May 4, and Parsons .is now on trial with the other Chicago 
leaders. 



242 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

in San Francisco for three years, when it was changed in 
form, and became a monthly magazine, of which six issues 
appeared, the last in July, 1884. The "goodwill " of Truth 
was finally made over to the Enquirer, of Denver, Col., which 
now takes its place, although more conservative in tone, and 
not, as was Truth, the acknowledged organ of the " Red 
International. " These journals supply abundant evidence 
touching the doctrines of the anarchist in respect to the 
family and religion, and it is these doctrines which are now 
to engage our attention. _y 

The Internationalists attack both religion and the family, 
and that with what may be considered practical unanimity. 
While it is not right to connect this attitude with socialism 
per se, the fairest minded person cannot blame a writer for 
holding up to condemnation any concrete, actually existing 
party which wages war against all that we consider most 
sacred, and which seeks to abolish those institutions which 
we hold to be of inestimable value, both to the individual 
and to society. 

Religion and the family are not only attacked by the 
extremists, but the onslaught on them is made in language of 
unparalleled coarseness and shocking impiety. Here are 
two quotations from Truth, 1 which are indicative of the gen- 
eral tone of the paper : " Heaven is a dream invented by 
robbers to distract the attention of the victims of their brig- 
andage ; " "When the laboring men understand that the 
heaven which they are promised hereafter is but a mirage, 
they will knock at the door of the wealthy robber with a 
musket in hand, and demand their share of the goods of this 
life now." Freiheit, the most blasphemous of all socialistic 
papers, concludes an article on the " Fruits of the Belief in 

1 Although Truth was the organ of the " Red International," these 
quotations characterize the " Black International " equally well. 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 243 

God " with the exclamation, " Religion, authority, and state 
are all carved out of the same piece of wood : to the devil 
with them all ! " The Vorbote speaks of religion as de- 
structive poison. The Pittsburg manifesto — unanimously 
adopted, be it remembered — contains this sentence, " The 
church finally seeks to make complete idiots out of the mass, 
and to make them forego the paradise on earth by promising 
a fictitious heaven.' ' 

There appears to be scarcely the same unanimity concern- 
ing the family. It was not directly condemned in the Pitts- 
burg manifesto, nor does Truth say much about it. But 
there is no doubt about the general policy of their journals. 
They sneer incessantly at the " sacredness of the family," and 
dwell with pleasure on every vile scandal which is noticed 
by the " capitalistic press." Especial attention is given to 
divorces, to show that the family institution is already under- 
mined ; and they are thorough-going sceptics regarding the 
morality of the relations between the sexes in bourgeois soci- 
ety. The Vorbote for May 12, 1883, contains an article on 
the "Sacredness of the Family," from which these sentences 
are extracted : — 

" In capitalistic society, marriage has long become a pure 
financial operation, and the possessing classes long ago estab 
lished community of wives, and, indeed, the nastiest which j 
conceivable. . . . They take a special pleasure in sedud 
one another's wives. ... A marriage is only so long m/ 
as it rests upon the free inclination of man and wife." 
poem which appeared in Truth, Jan. 26, 1884, is i; 
same spirit. It is entitled, 

MARRIAGE 
Under the Competitive System. 
" Oh, wilt thou take this form so spare, 
This powdered face and frizzled hair, 



244 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

To be thy wedded wife; 
And keep her free from labor vile, — 
Lest she her dainty fingers soil, — 
And dress her up in gayest style, 

As long as thou hast life? " 
"I will." 

M And wilt thou take these stocks and bonds, 
This brown-stone front, these diamonds, 

To be thy husband, dear? 
And wilt thou in this carriage ride, 
And o'er his lordly home preside, 
And be divorced while yet a bride, 
Or ere a single year? " 
"J will." 

"Then I pronounce you man and wife; 
And with what I've together joined 
The next best man may run away, 
Whenever he a chance can find." 

Most's Freiheit habitually attains the superlative of coarse- 
ness and vileness in its attacks on the family. It objects to 
the family on principle, because it is the State in miniature, 
because it existed before the State, and furnished a model for 
it with all its evils and perversities. Freiheit advocates a 
new genealogy traced from mothers, whose names, and not 
that of the fathers, descend to the children, since it is never 
certain who the father is. Public up-bringing of children is 
likewise favored in the Freiheit, in order that the old family 
may completely abandon the field to free love. 

We have now a complete picture of their ideals, — com- 
mon property, socialistic production and distribution, the 
grossest materialism, free love, in all social arrangements 
perfect individualism, or, in other words, anarchy ; negatively 
expressed, — away with private property, away with all author- 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 245 

ity, away with the State, away with the family, away with 
religion ! " 

The question, Who have been the teachers of the Inter- 
nationalists ? opens upon an interesting and instructive field 
of research. Nevertheless, the inquiry is a delicate one, for 
it involves names highly honored. While I cannot go into 
this subject at length, I will throw out a few remarks merely 
of a suggestive nature, but I must protest that I intend to 
cast no personal reproach on names I mention, even should 
it seem to me that the Anarchists had in some instances only 
drawn the logical conclusion of the teachings of their masters. 
A man is bound to speak what he regards as the truth, and it 
is a generally accepted maxim that a public teacher cannot 
be held responsible for " inferences." 1 

First, in political science they have drawn inspiration from 
the teachings of the old school political scientists who 
preached laissez /aire and taught the inherent badness of 
all government. Not to go outside of England, Buckle and 
Herbert Spencer may be the two thinkers on social topics 
whose writings are most familiar to them. Both of these 
men are studied and quoted by them with approval. 
" Herbert Spencer," says the Alarm, 2 " has done much to 
break attachment to the principle of authority in attempting 
to specify the limits of the state." An Anarchist of Michigan 
writes as follows : " The opinions that I form from reading 
Anarchistic literature — notably the writings of Herbert 
Spencer, Josiah Warren, Proudhon, Reclus, etc. — are that 
the kind of destruction they intend will not be destruction 

1 Manifestly it would stop all speaking and writing on scientific 
topics, if every one were first to inquire what inferences various mem- 
bers of the community would draw from doctrines put forth, and should 
keep silence until convinced that no misconstruction was possible. 

2 Nov. 14, 1885. 



246 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

of justice and morality. No injustice has sprung from the 
destruction of the institution of chattel slavery here. It 
was the destruction of a bad system. Of course, the de- 
struction of wealth in itself is an evil and I am in hopes 
that a better social system will be established without the 
destruction of life and wealth. ... Of course you are aware 
that many Anarchists hope to reach the goal of their ideal 
only through the slow process of evolution. . • . I believe 
we have too much respect for statute law. My expe- 
rience last winter at Lansing, the capital, while the Legis- 
lature was in session, has given me an utter contempt for 
what is commonly called law. I am positive that not one 
in ten of the one hundred and thirty members of the Legis- 
lature ever in all his life read a book on political economy. 
. . . What would we expect from one who claimed to be a 
surgeon who never studied surgery?" 

Edmund Burke's "Vindication of Natural Society" has 
attracted favorable notice on the part of Anarchists, and is 
advertised in the London Anarchist in these words : " The 
Inherent Evils of all State Governments Demonstrated. . . . 
This work not only attacks the various forms of government, 
but the principle of government itself." The American 
economist, Cooper, said early in this century that a nation 
was nothing but a grammatical conception, — a convenience 
of language to designate a collection of individuals. This 
has been repeated in many forms. An Italian delegate to 
the congress of the old International in Ghent, in 1867, 
asked " Where, then, is the State?" and replied, "An ex- 
crescence 1 which lives at the expense of the social body, and 
which has no other object and no other effect than to organ- 
ize and keep up the exploitation of the workers. . . . Our 
single aim must be to destroy the state. It will then be for 

1 Professor de Laveleye remarks, " The economists say a canker." 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 247 

the free and fertile action of the natural laws of society to 
accomplish the destinies of humanity." Professor de Lave- 
leye adds : " The influence of positivism and Herbert Spen- 
cer is manifest." 

One of the chief heroes of the Internationalists is Darwin, 
whose portrait is considered worthy to be associated with that 
of their greatest leaders ; while all the more renowned natural 
scientists are admired, and their writings studied with sur- 
prising diligence. Whatever else may fail in the lists of 
books recommended by the Anarchists for the education of 
their followers, one may count for certainty on finding a 
goodly number of works of Darwin and Huxley ; and no 
newspapers in the United States have given so much space 
to natural science and its great lights as those published by 
the Chicago Internationalists. Nearly all social democrats 
and anarchists are thorough-going Darwinians, and in this 
they seem inconsistent, for as Professor de Laveleye remarks, 
" It is impossible to understand by what strange blindness 
socialists adopt Darwinian theories, which condemn their 
claims of equality, while at the same time they reject Chris- 
tianity, whence those claims have issued and whence their 
justification may be found." 

A partial explanation, however, is possible, though a little 
complicated. It is connected on the one hand with hostility 
to the church, on the other with the influence of European, 
and in particular of Russian, leaders. Internationalism, which 
is much the same thing as the older Nihilism, sprang up 
among educated Russians at about the time when Darwin 
and his friends were beginning to be talked about ; and that 
order of mind which rendered one accessible to new and 
strange doctrines of one sort was not closed to those of a 
different kind. At any rate Nihilism made converts among 
scientists, and the influence of these leaders was felt on their 



248 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

more humble followers. Then Russian influence, which ha? 
everywhere been perceptible, was felt in opposition to the 
church, and the cultivation of natural science as taught by 
Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel appeared to them like a force 
which might be turned against supernatural religion. Now 
the hostility to the church is something easily understood in a 
country like Russia where it is used as the tool of despotism, 
and as the sanctification of damnable oppression. Is not the 
Czar the arch-enemy of freedom, and at the same time the 
head of the church ? Is it, then, so strange as it would at 
first appear, that educated Russians snould renounce the only 
form of Christianity which they know? The hostility to the 
church is largely due to foreign influence, I think, although 
the attitude which some of the prominent representatives of 
Christianity in this country assumed on the slavery question, 
has weakened her materially among the masses in America ; 
and nowhere has her voice been raised with sufficient clear- 
ness against such barbarous atrocities as those perpetrated 
in Russia and elsewhere in the name of religion. 1 The oppo- 
sition to the church can, then, be explained only on historical 
grounds. Another reason for the cultivation of natural 
science is the really strong desire for mental improvement. 

A similar partial explanation of the hostility to the state 
may be found. The only state known in Russia is bad; 
hence the overhasty generalization — away with the state ! 
This is the more easily understood when it is remembered 
that abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison became Anar- 
chists, — to be sure, peaceful Anarchists, and this with far less 

1 No one is acquainted with American churches who would pretend 
that these abuses were sanctioned by them. Many clergymen like Dr. 
Rylance and Dr. Heber Newton have spoken in the plainest terms, but 
too few have followed their example to make the real attitude of out 
churches as plain as it ought to be. 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 249 

cause. What were they fighting? Slavery. What upheld 
slavery? The state — that is, government; hence the con- 
clusion, government is an evil ! Away with it ! l 

Anarchy has received some further support in America — 
just about enough to be perceptible — from the general in- 
clination to take the law in one's own hand, as seen in 
examples of lynch law. The miscarriage of justice is so fre- 
quent that men lose patience at times ; even educated men 
do this too often, and feel that redress of wrong can be 
found only in violent self-defence. Lawlessness is prescribed 
for lawlessness ! I have heard a gentleman of character and 
standing say that he thought the people in a city, which I 
shall not name, ought to have arisen in anger and lynched 
a railway president, whom he personally liked, for a flagrant 
case of corruption of public authorities. Even a conserva- 
tive like Thurlow Weed could use these words : — 

" In some emergencies vigilance committees have been 
found to be not only a necessity but a salutary remedy for 
universal and overwhelming crimes and vices. The highest 
and most beneficent expressions of justice have occasionally 
been revealed by an unwritten code familiarly known as 
lynch law. If the chief gamblers who occasioned the gold 
panic of 1869 and the ' North- West ' corner of 1872, together 
with the usurers who brought about a state of things which 
enabled them to loan money at one per cent a day, had 
been suspended by the neck in the streets w T hich they des- 
ecrate, the city would now be exempt from present and 
prospective sufferings." 2 

These extracts are by no means quoted with approval, 
but simply as a partial explanation of current phenomena. 

1 Any one who will read Stepinak's " Russia Under the Tzars " wilj 
understand how modern Nihilism could originate in Russia. 

2 Memoir, p. 499. 



250 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

The error is that familiar one of generalization an the basis 
of insufficient data. 

The doctrine of revolution as held by good men, and as 
justified by American history, might seem, at first thought, to 
give some support to the teachings of the Internationalists. 
Take this passage, for example, from Frederick Denison 
Maurice's work " Social Morality " : " There may be a civil- 
ization which is destructive of social morality, of social 
existence. War may be — so far as we know has been — 
the only means of reforming it." Then take this extract 
from the Constitution of Maryland : — 

" Art. VI. That all persons invested with the legislative or 
executive powers of government are the trustees of the public, 
and, as such, accountable for their conduct; wherefore, 
whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public 
liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress 
ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to, reform 
the old and establish a new government; the doctrine of 
non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is 
absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness 
of mankind." 

Yet when we come to look at the matter more carefully, 
we find nothing in the world's history or in the doctrines of 
her best teachers to substantiate the Anarchistic theory of revo- 
lution, which contains but a mere kernel of truth. Revolu- 
tion, indeed, under certain extreme circumstances, which 
happily occur rarely in the history of a nation, may be both a 
right and a duty, but its justification lies in this : That it is, 
then, a revolution to restore the authority of law, not to over- 
throw it, for the sad crisis comes only when right and justice 
have been trampled under foot, and when brave and true 
men, after patient waiting and long-continued remonstrance;, 
find that existing authorities can never be persuaded to yield 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 251 

to the voice of reason by peaceful means. And if at times 
revolution against human law is advocated, it is because men 
have felt that only through the sacrifice of life could the 
supremacy of a higher law be secured. The world's bene- 
factors have never intended to violate law, but have simply 
striven to act in accordance with the dictates of law; 
and the grandest men of history have been among those 
who have been most conscious of the sublime authority oi 
that law to which they yielded obedience. It is, then, cor- 
rectly, that Maurice explains Milton's approval of the execu- 
tion of Charles I. in these words : " Milton, with his stern 
conception of the awfulness of Law, of its celestial origin, 
could rejoice in a death which seemed to him the vindica- 
tion of it," for he believed with all his soul "in the govern- 
ment of a King of kings." 1 

II. The International Workmen's Association. 

This association, designated by the initials, I. W. A., 
differs in a few particulars only from the I. W. P. A., just 
described. It lays greater stress on education and is some- 
what less inclined to favor violence in the present, holding 
that a revolution in the minds of men must precede the 
political revolution. Many if not most of its members 
are state socialists, not Anarchists. A union between the 
Black and Red has been urged, but has not as yet been 
brought about. The following explanation of its principles 
and methods is taken from the " First Report of the Kansas 
Bureau of Labor Statistics." 

" To print and publish and circulate labor literature ; to hold 
mass meetings ; to systematize agitation ; to establish labor libra- 
ries, labor halls, and lyceums for discussing social science ; to 

1 Maurice, 1. c, pp. 15, 16. 



252 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

maintain the labor press ; to protect members and all producers 
from wrong ; to aid all labor organizations ; to aid the establish- 
ment of unity and the maintenance of fraternity between all 
labor organizations ; to bring about an alliance between the man- 
ufacturing and agricultural producers ; to encourage the spirit of 
brotherhood and inter-dependence among all producers of every 
state and country ; to ascertain, segregate, classify, and study 
the habits and acts of their enemies ; to secure information of 
the wrongs perpetrated against them, and to record and circulate 
the same ; to arouse a spirit of hostility against and ostracism of 
the capitalistic press; to prepare the means for directing the 
coming social revolution by enlightening public opinion on the 
wrongs perpetrated against the producers of the world ; to oblit- 
erate national boundary lines and sectional prejudices, with a 
view to the international unification of the producers of all 
lands; and to eradicate the impression that redress can be 
obtained by the ballot. 

" The Internationalists believe that if universal suffrage had 
been capable of emancipating the working people from the rule 
of what they call the ' loafing classes,' that it would have been 
taken away from them before now, and they therefore have no 
faith in the ballot as a means of righting the wrongs under which 
the masses groan, because the * district' system, the division of 
the people into political parties, the manipulation of primaries, 
caucuses, and elections, the use of money, and the influence of 
bourgeoisie priests, press, and politician make it impossible for 
real and honest representatives of the people to be elected ; 
because no means exist to punish or recall unfaithful public 
servants ; because there are n<. means by which the people them- 
selves can pass such laws as they may desire ; because participa- 
tion in politics, as at present conducted, not only corrupts the 
leaders, but the rank and file as well ; because, in order to accom- 
plish their aims, it is necessary that in the hearts and minds of 
the people, there shall be developed the greatest courage, the 
loftiest unselfishness, and the most heroic devotion, and that the 
1 dirty pool of politics ' does not elevate or refine. They believe 
that the spoliation of the producing classes can only be termi 



THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 253 

nated by a bloody and universal revolution ; that this revolution 
will be precipitated upon them by the ruling class, or monopo- 
lists, as soon as they understand that the producers are being 
educated to such a degree as to make their continued * legal ' 
robbery dangerous to themselves and their institutions; and 
they hold that only by the education of the masses can they gain 
their social and economic freedom. They therefore declare that 
their first duty is to educate the masses; to prepare for the 
coming universal revolution, and to endeavor to so direct it that 
there may be secured as its results a system of co-operative 
society which will insure justice to all. The organization is 
formed on the ' group' system; that is, any person who sub- 
scribes to these principles may become an organizer. He organ- 
izes a group of eight besides himself. When this group becomes 
thoroughly conversant with the principles and methods of the 
organization, each member becomes an organizer and forms a 
group of his own ; and this goes on indefinitely. North America 
is divided into ten divisions, the Canadian, the British Columbia, 
the Eastern States, the Middle States, the Western States, the 
Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Coast, the Southern States, the 
Mexican, and the Missouri Valley. Each division is presided 
over by a division executive of nine persons. The International 
was organized on its present basis on July 15, 1881, with fifty- 
four delegates, representing 320 * divisions,' or groups, composed 
of 600,000 members. The countries represented were France, 
Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, 
Russia, Siberia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Turkey, Egypt, England, 
Mexico, and the United States." 

This I. W. A. is composed chiefly of English-speaking 
laborers, and its main strength is west of the Mississippi. 
j Its membership is probably small, and fifteen thousand is a 
generous estimate. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED AND THE EDUCA- 
TIONAL CAMPAIGN. 

OUR attention must now be devoted to an inquiry into 
the means by which the Internationalists propose to 
attain their ends. Having abandoned all faith in the ballot, 
their present method is to sow the seeds of discontent, bit- 
terness and hate in the minds of the laborers as a preparation 
for that violence and revolution which are to inaugurate a 
new era of peace and good-will among men. The following 
quotation from their manifesto makes this sufficiently plain. 

" Agitation for the purpose of organization ; organization 
for the purpose of rebellion. In these few words the ways 
are marked which the workers must take if they want to be 
rid of their chains, as the condition of things is the same in 
all countries of so-called ' civilization.' . . . We could show 
by scores of illustrations that all attempts in the past to 
reform this monstrous system by peaceable means, such as 
the ballot, have been futile, and all such efforts in the future 
must necessarily be so for the following reasons : — 

" The political institutions of the time are the agency of 
the property class ; their mission is the upholding of the 
privileges of their masters ; any reform in your own behalf 
would curtail their privileges. To this they will not and 
cannot consent, for it would be suicidal to themselves. . . . 

" There remains but one recourse — force ! Our fore- 
fathers have not only told us that against despots force is 



THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 255 

justifiable, because it is the only means, but they themselves 
have set the immemorial example." 

In their resume, they express their purpose in these 
words : " Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, 
*>., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary and international 
action." 

The newspapers of the Internationalists proclaim a similar 
doctrine, of which the following specimen quotation from 
Truth may serve as an example : — 

" It is beyond doubt that if universal suffrage had been a 
weapon capable of emancipating people, our tyrants would 
have suppressed it long ago. 

" Here in America, it is proved to be but the instrument 
used by our masters to prevent any reforms ever being 
accomplished. The Republican party is run by robbers and 
in the interest of robbery. The Democratic party is run by 
thieves and in the interest of thievery. Therefore vote no 
more." 

Further, the International Labor Association which met 
in London in July, 1881, declared its hostility to all political 
action, and their resolution on this subject was printed in 
Most's Freiheit with approval. It is also in keeping with 
Most's recent advice to laborers in his speeches. 

The fact is, the Internationalists put their faith in dynamite 
and other explosives. Dynamite, a cheap product and the 
poor man's natural weapon, is glorified, and songs are sung 
in its praise. " Hurrah for science ! hurrah for dynamite, 
the power which in our hands shall make an end of tyranny," 
is the sentiment of a poem entitled " Nihilisten " published 
in the Vorbote. It is explained that powder and musket 
broke the back of feudalism and made way for the rule of 
the bourgeoisie. Fire-arms are, however, too expensive for 
the proletariat, but just as the proletariat was awaking to a 



256 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

consciousness of its position, in the very nick of time, dyna> 
mite was discovered. Consequently such squibs as these 
may be found in the San Francisco Truth : " Truth is five 
cents a copy and dynamite forty cents a pound." " Every 
trade-union and assembly ought to pick its best men and 
form them into classes for the study of chemistry." 

But we have not yet come to the worst ; for there is no 
conceivable crime or form of violence against individuals or 
masses which the Internationalists as a party do not indorse, 
provided these crimes and acts of violence aid them to ac- 
complish their ends. Hypocrisy, fraud, deceit, adultery, 
robbery, and murder are held sacred, when beneficial to the 
revolution. Not every individual member certainly main- 
tains this view, but it is upheld unreservedly by the extremists 
and more or less explicitly by their leaders and journals. 
The following quotations from their newspapers supply 
abundant proof. 

From Truth : " War to the palace, peace to the cottage, 
death to luxurious idleness ! " 

" We have no moment to waste. Arm ! I say, to the 
teeth ! for the Revolution is upon you ! " * 

An attack on Mr. Abram S. Hewitt concludes with these 
words : " Mr. Hewitt ought to be turned over to some re- 
cruit, whose services will be paid for out of Patrick Ford's 
emergency fund." 

The following characteristic sentiments, a distinct revival 
of Babouvism, the communistic climax of the French Revo- 
lution, are taken from one of their papers : " Plundered as 
we are by the proprietor who limits our air and light, we 
must come forth from the cellars and attics in which our 
families struggle for existence and establish ourselves in 
those splendid buildings which have been raised at the cost 
1 Truth, Nov. 17, 1883. 



THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 257 

of so much toil and suffering, and in those spacious apart- 
ments in which there is an abundance of pure air, and where 
the sunlight will throw its life-giving radiance upon our little 
ones. We must take possession of the great warehouses and 
stores in which the rich man now finds the means of gratify- 
ing his caprices, and lay our hands for the common good 
on the enormous quantity of products of all kinds necessary 
for our nourishment and for our protection from the 
weather.' ' 

Assassination of members of the ruling classes is thus 
spoken of in one of their journals. " It does not at all 
appear so terrible to us when laborers occasionally raise their 
arm and lay low one and another of this clique of robbers 
and murderers." 1 In another issue of the same paper a 
writer describes the circumstances which would justify the 
assassination of men like Gould or Vanderbilt : 2 "If at 
present a man should kill Jay Gould or Vanderbilt without 
special occasion, this would produce a very unfavorable im- 
pression, and would be of no use and would not satisfy the 
popular sense of justice. 

" If, on the contrary, a railroad accident should again 
happen in consequence of the clearly proved criminal greed 
of these monopolists, and many men should be killed and 
crippled thereby, and the jury should, as usual, pro- 
nounce the real criminals, Vanderbilt or Gould, 'not guilty,' 
and the husband or father of one of the killed or one of the 
crippled should arise and obtain justice for himself in the 
massacre of these monsters (diese Scheusak), a cry of joy 
would resound through the whole land, and no jury would 
sentence the righteous executioner (Vollstrecker). . . . 
Whether one uses dynamite, a revolver, or a rope, is a matter 
of indifference." 

1 Vorbote, Jan. 16, 1881. 2 April 14. 



258 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

The Fackel, German for torch, is a most dangerous-ap- 
pearing sheet, inciting by its very appearance to incendi- 
arism. The letters of the title die Fackel are in flames, and 
are printed in a background of fire and smoke. It does not 
look like the torch which gives light, but the torch which 
kindles a general conflagration. 1 

Lynching is advocated by these journals, and admired as 
a form of popular justice. One writer expresses 2 his opinion 
in this manner : " Judge Lynch is the best and cheapest 
court in the land ; and when the sepse of justice in the peo- 
ple once awakes, may the judge hold court in every place, 
for nowhere is there a lack of unhanged honorables and 
prominent sharps." 

As one hundred years ago in France, so now, revolution 
has become a religion, — "our religion, the grandest religion 
that ever suffered for supporters and propagandists." There 
are those ready to die for it, as there were in the great 
French Revolution, — an eternal witness to the need of the 
human mind for some form of religion, and a proof that if 
a worthy one is not accepted, an unworthy one is sure, sooner 
or later, to force its entrance into the longing heart, and find 
there a capability of devotion often grand. The terrible 
condition of a soul which has thus elevated the trinity — 
envy, hatred, and destruction — to the position of a god to 
be served, cannot better be brought home to the reader than 
by means of a quotation from the Freiheit. The article from 

1 I have been informed that this interpretation, which appeared in my 
Recent American Socialism, and has since then been often repeated by 
others, is an error on my part. The true interpretation I did not under- 
stand, as it involved some old German symbolism, about which I knew 
nothing. I believe, as a matter of fact, the drawing for the title was 
made before the Fackel became an advocate of violence, 

2 In Die Freiheit. 



THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED, 259 

which it is extracted is called " Revolutionary Principles/' 
and appeared in the issue for March 18, 1883 : ! — 

"The revolutionist has no personal interest, concerns, 
feelings, or inclinations, no property, not even a name. 
Everything in him is swallowed up by the one exclusive 
interest, by the one single thought, by the one single passion, 

— the revolution. 

" In the depths of his nature, not only in words, but also 
in deeds, has he fully broken with the civil order, with the 
laws currently recognized in this world, with customs, morals, 
and usages. He is the irreconcilable enemy of this world ; 
and if he continues to live in it, it only happens in order to 
destroy it with the greater certainty. 

" The revolutionist despises all dogmas, and renounces the 
science of the present world, which he leaves for future 
generations. He knows only one science, namely, destruc- 
tion. For this purpose, and for this alone, he studies me- 
chanics, physics, chemistry, and possibly also medicine. 
For this purpose, he studies, day and night, living science, 

— men, characters, relations, — as well as all conditions of 
the present social order in all its ramifications. 

" He despises public opinion. He despises and hates the 
present social morality in all its leadings and in all its mani- 
festations ; for him, everything is moral which proves the 
triumph of the revolution, everything immoral and criminal 
which hinders it. Severe against himself, he must likewise 
be severe against others. Every affection, the effeminating 
sensations of relationship, friendship, love, gratitude, all 
must be smothered in time by the one cold passion, the revo- 
lutionary work. For him there is only one pleasure, one 

1 It is evidently an interpretation, perhaps slightly changed, of 
Bakounine's " Revolutionary Catechism." Cf. Laveleye's " Socialism 
of To-day," pp. 204, 205, 



160 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

comfort, one recompense, — the success of the revolution. 
Day and night may he cherish only one thought, only one 
purpose, viz., inexorable destruction. While he pursues this 
purpose, without rest and in cold blood, he must be ready to 
die, and equally ready to kill every one with his own hands 
who hinders him in the attainment of this purpose. . . . 

" For the sake of unrelenting destruction, the revolutionist 
can, and, indeed, often must, live in the midst of society, and 
appear to be different from what he really is. The revolu- 
tionist must gain access to the higher circles, the church, the 
palace. . . . This entire lewd official society is divided into 
several categories. The first consists of those who are forth- 
with to be consecrated to Death" — and much more like 
this. 

The most violent society in America has recently been 
formed, and has issued a proclamation. It is called the 
Black Hand, and its purpose is immediate violence. A few 
sentences from the proclamation x will prove instructive : 2 — 

"THE BLACK HAND. 

44 A Proclamation Issued by an American Branch. 
"Be up and Doing. 

" Fellow workmen : The social crisis is pointing in all coun- 
tries of modern civilization towards a fast approaching crisis. . . . 
Only through daring will we be victorious. . . . 

1 Published in Truth, Jan. 26, 1884. 

2 This is the comment of a socialist on what I say about .he Black 
Hand : " It should be omitted, as there did never exist in America such 
a thing as a Black Hand. John Most, liking sensation, published only 
an appeal for forming the Black Hand, and with exception of a few fur- 
ther cranks, there was never an organization of such a kind." I leave 
it, though the fact is, I believe, correctly stated by the socialist. It is 
worth something, even as the expression of the ideas of a very few. 



THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 261 

" The masses will only be with us when they trust us, and 
they will trust us if they have proofs of our power and ability. 

" We will give them. 

" This involves the necessity of revolutionary skirmishes, of 
daring deeds, of those acts which are the forerunners of every 
great revolution. This is the name of our International Organi- 
zation — the Black Hand. 

" Proletarians ! . . . We appeal herewith to all our associates 
in regard to the propaganda of deed in every form. . . . 

" War to the Knife ! 

" The Executive of the Black Hand." 

The power of the revolutionary and violent socialists in 
countries where they exist in numbers, is a kind of imperium 
in imperio, whose leaders regard reverence for nationality as 
worthy to rank with old wives 7 superstitions, and consider 
patriotism a criminal weakness unworthy of a free man. This 
socialistic imperium is therefore thoroughly cosmopolitan 
and one and indivisible in all parts of the world ; but two or 
more of its chief seats are evidently in America, for New 
York and still more Chicago seem entitled to such a posi- 
tion. 

The Internationalists look at their power as an imperium, 
loyalty to which is worthy of the highest praise, and they 
confer distinguished honor upon all those who suffer in their 
cause. Terms are used whose aim is to pervert the mind 
and blind the eyes of sympathizers to the true character of 
their deeds. The leaders issue their decrees, couched in 
language proper to the civil authorities of the State, and 
pass " sentence of death " upon offenders. Assassination is 
called " execution,' ' while the death penalty, when inflicted 
upon one of their members in due course of law, is called 
judicial murder, Thus the fulfilment of the mandates of 



262 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Anarchistic committees appear as righteous to those intrusted 
therewith, as it does to a federal marshal to assist in the 
enforcement of the laws of the United States. The power 
in New York, for example, sends instructions to the social- 
ists of Vienna in 1883, admonishing them to pass over to 
the propaganda of deed and exterminate the Royal House 
of Austria and all who uphold them, 1 and when their " com- 
rades/ ' Stellmacher and others, murder officers of the 
Viennese police, a grand demonstration is held in Irving 
Hall in New York, to glorify these heroes of crime. 2 The 
mind of man has conceived no out-pourings of cruel vin- 
dictiveness and malignant hate which surpass the utter- 
ance of these mad souls, which one is tempted to believe 
are the spirits of the lost returned to torment the earth 
for sin. Most tells the faithful followers that what has hap- 
pened in Austria ought not be called murder, because 
" murder is the killing of a human being, and I have never 
heard that a policeman was a human being. ,, Then he goes 
on to say that spies and all members of the police ought to 
be exterminated, one after another, they all long ago having 
been declared outlaws by every decent man. " With shouts 
of joy," continues he, "does the proletariat learn of such 
deeds of vengeance. The propaganda of deed excites in- 
calculable enthusiasm. When Hodel and Nobiling shot at 
the accursed Lehmann, 3 there were indeed those among the 
laborers who did not then understand those brave deeds, 
but to-day the German proletariat has only one objection to 
raise to them : viz., that better aim was not taken. ... As 
for America, the people of that land will learn one day that 
an end is to be made of the mockery of the ballot, and that 

1 See Die Freiheit, Feb. 24, 1883. 

2 See Die Freiheit, Feb. 16, 1884. 
s I.e., the Emperor William. 



THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 263 

the best thing one can do with such fellows as Jay Gould 
and Vanderbilt is to hang them on the nearest lamp-post." 
Then a series of resolutions were unanimously adopted, 
expressing sympathy with the aims of the Austrian revolu- 
tionists, approving of their means, and urging them to spare 
no life which stood in the way of the extinguishment of the 
aristocracy and bourgeoisie, in particular to destroy the 
emperor. The comrades were told that they must make 
themselves more terrible than terror itself. The resolutions 
closed with these words : " Brothers ! Your affair is that of 
the oppressed against their tyrants. It is not the affair of 
Austria. It is the most sacred affair of the people of all 
lands. 

" Comrades, we applaud most heartily your acts and your 
tactics. . . . Kill, destroy, annihilate your aristocracy and 
bourgeoisie to the last man. 

" In dealing with this canaille, show neither love nor pity, 
. . . Vive la revolution so dale" 

At the door a collection was taken up to form a " revolu- 
tionary action-fund." The proceeds were stated to be 
thirty-six dollars. 

When the wretched August Reinsdorf was executed for an 
attempt on the life of the German emperor, Most's Freiheit 
appeared with a heavy black border about the first page, on 
which was an engraving of this "martyr," accompanied by 
a biographical notice in which he was raised to the rank of 
an immortal hero and a devoted saint. " One of our noblest 
and best is no more. In the prison yard at Halle under the 
murderous sword of the criminal Hohenzollern band, on the 
7th of February, August Reinsdorf ended a life full of battle 
and of self-sacrificing courage, as a martyr to the great 
revolution. All who knew the comrade personally, know 
what this loss signifies. Every one who is able to value 



264 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

manly worth and self-sacrifice, needs only to know how 
Reinsdorf conducted himself before the court, in order to 
possess the highest regard for him beyond the grave. As 
for us, we have taken Reinsdorf into our heart and there 
he will remain for all time." Language of this kind is con- 
tinued through three columns, and it is mentioned with 
pride that Reinsdorf had been connected with the Freiheit 
from the beginning of its existence. 1 

It might be supposed that these Anarchists would have 
been stricken with remorse when they heard the news of the 
horrible dynamite explosions in London in January, 1885, 
but their consciences had already been seared as with 
a hot iron, and the editor of Liberty had the audacity to 
write such words as these : " It is glorious news that comes 
to us from England ; sad enough if it were unnecessary, sad 
enough that it should be necessary, but having been made 
necessary by its victims, none the less joyful and glorious. 
The dynamite policy is now definitely adopted in England, 
and must be vigorously pushed until it has produced the 
desired effect of abolishing all the repressive legislation that 
denies the freedom of agitation and discussion, which alone 
can result in the final settlement of social questions and 
make the revolution a fixed fact. ... An explosion that 
should blow every atom of the English Parliamentary Build- 
ings into the Thames River ought to be as gratifying to 
every lover of liberty as the fall of the Bastile in 1789. 
. . . Why, by endangering the lives of innocent people, 
alienate the sympathy of many who would appreciate and 
applaud a prompt visitation of death upon a Gladstone 
immediately after the passage of a Coercion Act? . . • 
How much better and wiser and more effective in this re- 
spect the course of the Russian and German Terrorists? 
1 Die Freiheil, Feb. 14, 1885. 



THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 265 

Witness, for instance, the telling promptness with which the 
police commissioner Rumpff was found dead on his door- 
step the other day, just after he had accomplished the death 
sentence of the brave Reinsdorf and his anarchistic com- 
rades? I commend this relentless directness to the Irish 
dynamiters." * 

While the European practices of the revolutionists have 
not as yet been adopted in America, they themselves claim 
that our respite is a short one, since they are waiting for 
an opportune moment to begin the tactics of violence, and 
the favorable time is expected in a very near future. 2 

While one method of preparing for the revolution is, as 
is seen, the propaganda of deed, as the use of dynamite and 
personal violence to individuals are euphemistically termed, 
another is the "Educational Campaign " which accom- 
panies it and which some even of the Anarchists think 
ought to precede it, though the tendency now is strongly in 
the direction of immediate action. 

In the last days of the newspaper Truth, its incessant cry 
was the " Educational Campaign " which was considered 
the pressing need of the moment. It was urged that tracts 
be published, existing journals encouraged, new ones founded, 
and teachers sent out into the four quarters of the earth to 
spread the doctrines of socialism far and near. Instructions 
to agitators were published, of which the following are sam- 
ples : — 

" Bring right home to him [the wage-worker] the ques- 
tion of his servitude and poverty. . . . 

" Create disgust with, and rebellion against, existing 
usages, for success lies through general dissatisfaction. 

" The masses must have something to hate. Direct theii 
hatred to their condition." 

1 Liberty, Jan. 31, 1855. 2 See Du Freiheit, Feb. 18, 1884. 



266 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

These instructions and others like them are now being 
carried out by the propagandists of anarchy. " Groups " 
are formed to which text-books constituting a course of 
study in socialism are recommended. It is urged that 
members of existing groups continue the work by formation 
of new groups of seven or eight or more, and that these 
latter in similar manner carry forward the movement which 
thus becomes self-propagating. 

The ingenuity displayed in nourishing hate is remarkable. 
A number of Truth published two years ago contained 
the bill of fare of a rich man's dinner, which laborers are 
advised to cut out and paste on their " old tin coffee-pot at 
home." Long and apparently accurate lists of rich men in 
the chief cities of the United States are published with 
headings like this : — 1 

" DOLLARS. 
44 More men in the United States who have robbed us. 

44 The grand Larcenists of America. 
44 The People who have Legally Stolen the Unpaid 
Wages of the Workers. 
44 {Official^ 
" Headquarters Division Executive, Pacific Coast Division, 
International Workmen's Association, San Francisco. [Supple- 
ment to Circular No. io, Series B., 1883]." 

This also marks out the rich men for attention in the 
upheaval for which they are preparing. Perhaps they will 
be turned over to " recruits " to be paid out of emergency 
funds now being collected, unless, indeed, these should in 
the meanwhile mysteriously disappear; which fate, it is 
said, has ere this overtaken certain Irish emergency funds. 

While the labor leaders and the labor press generally con- 
demn these sentiments of the Internationalists in terms oi 
1 Truth, Jan. 16, 1884. 



THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 267 

merited severity, and while they are happily abhorrent to 
the vast mass of our laboring population, a serious mistake 
is sometimes made by writers who would only call attention 
to existing wrongs and to the dangers of enormous fortunes, 
and yet do so in language which is too likely to arouse 
merely envy and hate. More care ought to be exercised in 
this regard. If the cause of some of these most unfortunate 
expressions, indeed, is to be found in the evil passions of the 
human heart, which no one can deny to be at least occasion- 
ally the case, those who utter them ought to begin a work of 
reform at once within their own souls, for they can never 
exert a thoroughly good influence until their own natures 
are actuated by right feelings. 

The writer of a poem on Vanderbilt's wealth which 
appeared in John Swinton's paper of Oct. 28, 1883, may 
himself perhaps have been animated only with the wish 
to arouse the attention of the careless and indifferent to 
what he believed to be evil in our social system ; yet there 
is reason to fear that those who read such productions are 
more harmed than benefited by them. The poem is enti- 
tled " Wm. H. Vanderbillion, the song to be sung in the 
Reign of the Billionaire. Song of the Billionaire." 

The following are three stanzas : — 

" I'm a bloater, I'm a bloater, 

By my millions all are dazed; 
I'm a bloater, I'm a bloater, 

On the ' water ' I have raised ! 
***** 
"I'm a-drumming, I'm a-drumming 

Up the millions, right or wrong; 
I'm a-coming, yes, a-coming, 

With a thousand millions strong ! 
♦ * * * * 



268 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

" I'm a-nursing, fondly nursing 

Well my wealth in coffers crammed; 
Public 's cursing, loudly cursing, 

But ' the public may be damned I ' n 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 

THE " Manifesto of the Congress of the Socialistic 
Labor Party," held at Baltimore in December, 1883, 1 
contained these principles which had been unanimously 
adopted as the result, both of their own researches and of 
the studies of their brothers in Europe : 

" Labor being the creator of all wealth and civilization, it 
rightfully follows that those who labor and create all wealth 
should enjoy the full result of their toil. Therefore we 
declare : 

" That a just and equitable distribution of the fruits of 
labor is utterly impossible under the present system of soci- 
ety. This fact is abundantly illustrated by the deplorable 
condition of the working classes, which are in a state of des- 
titution and degrading dependence in the midst of their 
own productions. While the hardest and most disagreeable 
work brings to the worker only the bare necessaries of life, 
others who labor not riot in labor's production. We further- 
more declare : 

" That the present industrial system of competition, based 
on rent, profit-taking, and interest, causes and intensifies 
this inequality, concentrating into the hands of a few all 
means of production, distribution, and the results of labor, 

1 A platform somewhat different was adopted at the Fifth National 
Convention held in Cincinnati in October (5-8), 1885. This will be 
found in the Appendix. 



270 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

thus creating gigantic monopolies dangerous to the people's 
liberties ; and we further declare : 

" That these monster monopolies and these consequent 
extremes of wealth and poverty supported by class legisla- 
tion, are subversive of all democracy, injurious to the na- 
tional interests, and destructive of truth and morality. This 
state of affairs, continued and upheld by the ruling political 
parties, is against the welfare of the people. 

" To abolish this system, with a view to establish co-oper- 
ative production, and to secure^squitable distribution, we 
demand that the resources of life, namely land, the means 
of production, public transportation, and exchange become 
as fast as practicable the property of the whole people." 

The form of society which the members of the Socialistic 
Labor Party desire is quite different from the voluntary asso- 
ciation of the Anarchist, since they are unable to understand 
how there can be social ownership of capital, rational pro- 
duction in the interest of all, and an equitable distribution of 
products without control or regulation. Consequently they 
are not opposed to the state in itself (an sich), but wish to 
substitute the socialistic state, the people's state, for the 
present state-form. Combatting anarchy and individualism, 
they are, in the strict sense of the term, socialists. While 
they believe in the state, they do not think that national 
boundaries should constitute barriers to combined action, 
either now or hereafter, but hold that the interests of the 
mass of humanity are one in all lands of civilization. The 
moderates are as strictly internationalists in theory and feel- 
ing as the members of the party bearing that name, and, in 
fact, more nearly resemble the old International of Marx 
in their organization. 

The Socialistic Labor Party is composed of local sections, 
of which there may be only one in any city, although this 



THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY, 273 

one may be subdivided into " branches." The head of the 
party is a " National Executive Committee," which is, how- 
ever, in some respects, subject to a Board of Supervisors. 
The final decision of conflicts, of course, rests with the 
members of the party, who manifest their wishes by their 
votes. A wide sphere of action is also reserved for their 
conventions or congresses which meet every two or three 
years. 

In opposition to the "reds," the "blues" enforce the 
necessity of unity in organization as the indispensable pre- 
liminary of harmonious activity. The workmen isolated, it 
is held, can accomplish nothing, but combined in a closely 
united whole they can carry everything before them and re- 
construct the world. " Fellow- workmen," thus the laborers 
are addressed in their manifesto, "you must rally in one 
great invincible phalanx, if you hope to gain a foot of 
ground." 

It is to be noticed that this party of socialists is also a 
political party, which has in times past taken an active part 
in politics, in a few cases electing their candidates, and 
which hopes for greater success in the future, though only 
a few of them indulge the hope that their reforms can be 
accomplished peaceably by the ballot. But they advise 
participation in politics because they regard it as an educa- 
tional aid, bringing their principles before the people and 
thus becoming a useful means of propagandism. It is also 
considered helpful in securing an efficient organization of 
their own party. " Universal suffrage must be regarded as 
a weapon in battle, not as a means of salvation." l Again, 
the ballot is the best visible evidence of strength, and the 
growth which it registers must encourage adherents to re- 
newed efforts for an extension of their principles. They 
1 Der Sozialist, ]an. 24, 1885. 



272 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

appear to hope further that it may assist them in securing 
certain reforms not incompatible with existing economic in- 
stitutions. But this is not all. As the laborers gain political 
power, they will attempt to use it in their own behalf; 
and the ruling classes, it is thought, not being able to con- 
sent to this, w T ill rebel and bring on the revolution, which is 
expected in the end. 

The difference between the two parties in respect to revo- 
lution, then, is this : the Internationalists desire to begin the 
revolution and do not shrink from an active initiative in 
deeds of violence. This the moderates regard as madness, 
holding that a revolution comes in the natural course of evo- 
lution and cannot be " made." The Socialistic Labor Party 
believes in peaceful agitation and lawful means in behalf of 
their principles until their enemies force the struggle upon 
them ; as their manifesto puts it, — 

" We must expect that our enemies — when they see our 
power increasing in a peaceful and legal way and approach- 
ing victory - — will on their part become rebels, just as once 
did the slave-holders, and that then the time will come, for 
the cause of labor, when that old prime lever of all revolu- 
tions, Force . . . must be applied to, in order to place the 
working masses in control of the state, which then for the 
first time will be the representative, not of a few priv- 
ileged classes, but of all society. . . . We surely do not 
participate in the folly of those men who consider dynamite 
bombs the best means of agitation to produce the greatest 
revolution that transpired in the social life of mankind. We 
know very well that a revolution in the brains of men and 
the economical conditions of society must precede, ere a 
lasting success can be obtained in the interest of the working 
classes." 

The doctrine of the Socialistic Labor Party is not that it 



THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 273 

is necessary to secure unanimity of opinion, or even the ad- 
herence of the majority before their principles can be estab- 
lished, but they think it essential that a large leaven of 
socialism and a very general understanding of their principles 
should precede the successful revolution. It is believed that 
uprisings will occur without their intervention, and these 
they hope to be able to guide. They desire to raise up 
leaders for the proletariat who may seize on the fruits of 
upheavals in society ; for they argue that after the masses 
have hitherto accomplished revolutions, the lack of intelli- 
ligent, determined leaders with definite aims has enabled 
others to step in and enjoy the advantages purchased by the 
blood of the toiling many. Thus the bourgeoisie captured 
the French Revolution. They do not mean that this shall 
occur again. 

The moderates expect the laborers, in the one way or the 
other, to gain the political power of the state, which they will 
then use to reconstruct the state, both politically and eco- 
nomically, in the interest of the entire people. The state, 
they hold, is now a capitalistic state, because the small but 
well-organized class of capitalists virtually rule the large 
but divided class of wage-workers, who constitute four-fifths 
of the population, and because they do this in such manner 
as to promote their own welfare at the expense of the masses. 
The struggle for power hitherto, it is maintained, has been 
a class-struggle, and the result has always been the 
triumph of a class in a class-state. The conflict is still 
between classes, the only two great remaining classes, namely, 
between capitalists and laborers. This has been the 
course of development up to the present time, and there is 
no reason to quarrel with it. 1 It were as wise to get 

1 1 trust it is sufficiently plain that I am simply endeavoring to pre- 
sent the opinions of others, not my own. 



274 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

angry with the laws of motion. But the evolution of pre- 
ceding ages is soon to terminate in a higher product than 
the world has yet seen, for when the masses obtain power 
there will be constituted for the first time not a class-state, 
not a form of society designed to benefit any groups of indi- 
viduals, but the true people's state, the folk-state, designed 
to elevate all alike. 

It is maintained that democracy, to be eal, must be eco- 
nomic as well as political, and it is this kind of democracy 
which it is desired to establish. An inconsistency is discov- 
ered in the democracies of the present age, which grant equal- 
ity in political affairs without any attempt to realize justice 
in distribution of products. But this logical contradiction 
is regarded as even worse than it appears at first sight, from 
the fact that economic servitude renders political equality a 
deceit, a snare for the unwary, since those who control the 
means of life control the votes. Thus, a disastrous climax 
is reached, — the equality of all men is proclaimed, and then 
the hopes raised are frustrated by the restriction of this 
equality to the political sphere of action; but it does not 
rest with this curtailment, as indirect means are soon dis- 
cerned for robbing the people of even political equality. 
Democracy thus becomes a simulacrum. 

It is not necessary to add much to what has already been 
said in explanation of their economic ideas, which, indeed, 
are not peculiar. These socialists believe in a universal 
system of co-operation, extending itself over the entire 
civilized world, and embracing, doubtless, in the end, those 
countries which are not now so far advanced as to be 
included within the regions of civilization. The means of 
production, the basis of co-operative labor, are to be the 
property of the people as a whole, — like the post-office in 
the United States now, and railroads and telegraph lines in 



THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 27b 

other lands, — and the products for consumption are to be 
distributed " equitably," which can be differently interpreted 
according to one's notions of justice. Some would doubtless 
say " according to deeds," which is socialism ; others, " ac- 
cording to needs," which might better be called com- 
munism. 

The Socialistic Labor Party, composed of abler and better- 
educated men, is far more decent than the International. 
Its adherents do not indulge to the same extent in the so- 
called " strong phrases " of the Internationalists, which mean 
vulgar blackguardism such as would cause a Billingsgate fish- 
woman to hang her head in envious shame. Again, they do 
not take such an extreme attitude in regard to religion and 
the family, neither of which is mentioned in their manifesto, 
though the Sozialist, their official organ, has rejected all 
supernatural religion. The abandonment of all hope of a 
union with the extremists has had a most salutary effect upon 
the moderates. It is likely that before the separation became 
final, the better men of the party tolerated much of which 
they must inwardly have disapproved, in order not to estrange 
their more violent brethren. 

The adherents of the Socialistic Labor Party do not regard 
the present state as so utterly bad that it is not worth while 
to advocate specific reforms at once, among which their 
manifesto of 1883 mentions the following: "Bureaus of 
Labor Statistics, Reduction of the Hours of Labor, Abolition 
of Contract Convict Labor, Employers* Liability Law, Pro- 
hibition of Child Labor, Compulsory Education, Factory, 
Mine, and Workshop Inspection, Sanitary Inspection of Food 
and Dwellings, and Payment of Wages in Cash." They also 
frequently demand the referendum, as in Switzerland, and 
such arrangements as are calculated to give the people an 
initiative in legislation. Such constitutional changes are ad- 



276 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

vocated as will abolish the Senate, and substitute a federal 
council, as in Switzerland, for our presidency. 

The three most prominent organs of the moderates are 
Der Sozialist, the official weekly already mentioned, started 
Jan. 3, 1885, the Philadelphia Tageblatt, and the New 
Yorker Volkszeitung, a daily, which also issues a weekly and 
a Sunday edition. The Volkszeitung is in its eighth year, and 
is decidedly the cleanest and ablest socialistic sheet in the 
United States. A similar newspaper in the English language, 
called the Voice of the People, was started early in 1883. It 
appeared as a weekly, but promised a daily edition, which 
remained an unfulfilled hope, while even the weekly soon 
died. 

An attempt is being made to win English-speaking follow- 
ers, and the National Executive Committee advertises six 
pamphlets and a series of socialistic tracts in the English 
language. An English organ is contemplated. Some prog- 
ress has been made in winning English-speaking adherents 
to the party, and large success has met their efforts to diffuse 
their ideas among the laboring classes \ but, as the Sozialist 
frankly acknowledges, they are still a " German colony, a 
branch of the German social democracy." Indeed, one bond 
of union holding them together is their interest and active 
participation in the election of members to the Imperial 
Parliament of Germany, 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM 

ITS SIGNIFICANCE 

THE character, aims, and methods of the parties rep- 
resenting socialism in America have now been de- 
scribed, I ^answered question is, What have 1 
fear from them? 

The first step in the reply to this query a the ascertain- 
ment of their strength. While it is extremely difficult to 
make even an approximate estimate, and more than this is 
impossible, there are several indications of the extent of 
their power which must be noticed. 

One of these signs is their press. The number of papers 
already enumerated is considerable, and others might be 
mentioned. Starkweather and Wilson, in their pamphlet, 
give three lists of journals. The rr: mdodes those vi 
are (i socialistic," and under this head sixteen journals are 
mentioned, of which three are dailies. The second 1: 
composed of ten u semi-socialistic " newspapers, of which 
two appear daily. u Socialistically inclined " periodicals to 
the number of eight constitute the third class. While some 
of the journals enumerated have ceased to appear, new ones 
have sprung up to take their place. It is a point worthy of 
note that a tireless, persistent effort is making to disseminate 
the most radical views by means of a press which appears, 

1 In the perusal of this chapter it should be remembered that there 
are peaceful as well as violent revolutions. 



278 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

on the whole, to be increasing in power. The larger number 
of pronounced socialistic papers belong to the extremists, 
which may be considered as ominous an indication as the 
fact that they appear in all sections of the country, not ex- 
cluding those which are supposed to offer the most favorable 
opportunities to the laborer. Denver, Col., sends us the 
Labor Enquirer, with the motto, " He who would be free 
himself must strike the blow " ; and not long ago the Tocsin, 
a Herald of the Coming Revolution, rang out no uncertain 
war-cry in Dallas, Tex. The only j>ne of the parties hav- 
ing an English official organ is the International, with its 
Alarm ; while the Voice, representing the Socialistic Labor 
Party, a comparatively modest and decent newspaper, failed 
for lack of support. 

It is difficult to estimate the strength of the socialistic 
newspapers. As already stated, the Vorbote, the oldest of 
them, is in its twelfth year. Their advertising patronage is 
often fair, which would seem to indicate a respectable circu- 
lation. Truth claimed a circulation of six thousand, which 
must be placed over against the fact that it finally ceased to 
appear for lack of sufficient support and the proprietor's 
statement that he sank twelve thousand dollars of his own 
money in the concern. The Sozialist in its fourth number x 
claimed 3,389 subscribers, in addition to five hundred cop- 
ies sent in response to inquiries and distributed to different 
news companies. The strongest socialistic newspaper in 
the country is the New Yorker Volkszeitung, which has been 
already mentioned. It is claimed that the three editions of 
this journal together have a circulation of over thirty thou- 
sand, which is larger than that of any other German news- 
paper in the country with the single exception of the 
Staatszeitung of New York. 

1 Jan. 24, 1885. 



STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 279 

But we must not confine ourselves to journals nominally 
socialistic in our attempts to estimate the influence of the 
press in the diffusion of socialism among American laborers. 

There are several organs of trades-unions which advocate 
the general principles of socialism, although they do not make 
that their chief concern, for their aim is first of all to pro- 
mote the interest of their particular trades. Among these 
may be mentioned Der Hammer, the official organ of the 
Metal Workers' Union of North America; the Deutsch- 
Amerikanische Baecker-Zeitung, the organ of the Journey- 
man Bakers' Union ; the Furniture Workers' Journal, the 
official organ of the International Furniture Union ; Prog- 
ress, the official organ of the Cigar Makers' Progressive 
Union. The Carpenter, the official organ of the Brother- 
hood of Carpenters and Joiners, and some other papers, are 
described by the Sozialist as " well on the road to social- 
ism," but this is a doubtful expression. A person who 
recognizes the full strength of socialism and acknowledges 
the good there is in it, and yet sees clearly its weakness, 
may be, and often is, further from an acceptance of that 
economic system than its most pronounced but bigoted 
opponent. Many of the labor papers, however, open their 
columns for a free discussion of socialism as well as of other 
questions of the day, and thus give an opportunity for the 
presentation of socialistic opinions, while taking no definite 
position either for or against them. A few are undoubtedly 
socialistic, even when they do not take the position of 
formal advocates. Such is the Workmen's Advocate of New 
Haven. The Irish World and Industrial Liberator, which 
is said to have an immense circulation, has been claimed as 
an exponent of socialism, but with how much truth I am 
unable to say. Finally, it must be noticed that foreign 
journals like Le Socialiste of Paris and Der Sozial-Demokrat, 



280 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

the official organ of the German social democracy, published 
in Zurich, Switzerland, circulate to a limited extent among 
our French and German laborers. Several organs of social- 
ism have recently begun to appear in England, like the 
Christian Socialist, the monthly To Day, and the weekly 
Commonweal, to which the English poet, Morris, contrib- 
utes regularly. These come to our country and are read by 
a few. The English organ of the Anarchists, called the 
Anarchist, also finds its way to our shores, but its circulation 
in the United States is doubtless lirpited. 

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that either socialism or an- 
archism has a strong press in this country, and it is to be 
noticed as a welcome sign that the moderate socialists con- 
trol both the most influential organ and a larger number of 
newspapers than the extremists. Indeed, it may be said 
that outside of their own organs the Anarchists and Inter- 
nationalists control at most the general policy of but two or 
three labor newspapers. The Miners* journal, of Scam- 
monville, Kan., was mentioned two years ago in Liberty as 
the first instance, so far as the editor could call to mind, 
of a newspaper " published in the interest of a special class 
of workers and pointing them to complete liberty as their 
only hope." 

The socialists in Germany almost universally believe in 
the ballot and participate in elections very generally, so that 
the results of the elections for members of the Imperial 
Parliament give one some notion of their strength and of 
their progress. It was, for example, a reliable indication of 
growth when the social-democrats sent twenty-four members 
to the German Parliament in the fall of 1884, while up to that 
time they had never elected more than thirteen representa- 
tives. But in this country a large part of the socialists hav- 
ing abandoned the use of the ballot as a means of agitation, 



STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 281 

the fact that they have achieved little success as politicians 
is not so significant, and the constantly recurring elections 
give no gauge with which to measure their growth. 

While there may have been those in Congress who sympa- 
thized with many of their teachings, the socialists have never 
had a representative in that body who was elected nominally 
as their candidate. They have, however, elected municipal 
councillors in Chicago, and have elsewhere gained a few 
victories through the ballot-box. In 1879 f° ur socialistic 
aldermen were elected in that city, and the party's candidate 
for mayor received twelve thousand votes. Three of their 
candidates for the House of Representatives and State 
Senate of Illinois were elected the same year. In 1878 
they went into the field in Ohio with a State ticket, which 
received over twelve thousand votes, and this seems to have 
been their high-water mark in politics in that State. The 
following year their State ticket in New York received ten 
thousand votes, or less, and this discouraged them. 1 

At their last congress, in Baltimore, 1883, tne Socialistic 
Labor Party reported the existence of thirty-eight " sec- 
tions " which were united in the central organization, in 
addition to a few independent sections. Rapid progress 
appears to have been made since then, however, as fifty- 
eight " sections " publish notices of their places and days of 
meeting, in the Sozialist for March 7, 1885, and seventy- 
two in the issue for July 3, 1886. There is no means of 
obtaining the exact number of members in each section. 
The one in New York seems to be quite large, as it is com- 
posed of four branches, and Branch One recently numbered 
two hundred and seventy-five members, while there were 
thirty applicants for membership. But most of the sections 

1 Report of the Proceedings of the National Convention, held in 
Allegheny, Pa., 1879-80. 



282 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

are evidently small, and the total number of enrolled 
names can be safely estimated as under ten thousand. 
This is, however, comparatively a small matter. These 
sections are simply gathering points for the more ardent 
promoters of the cause. It has been recently stated that 
there were twenty-five thousand adherents of the party in 
New York, and if I wished to venture a guess, — a rash thing 
to do, — I should say that there might be half a million 
adherents of the general principles of moderate and peace- 
ful socialism in the United States. y 

The several unions whose organs have already been men- 
tioned in this chapter are composed largely of socialists, and 
there are socialists in all the labor organizations. This could 
not be otherwise, for it would be unreasonable to expect a 
labor organization to refuse admission to a workman, otherwise 
unexceptionable, because he held a certain theory of indus- 
trial society which might not accord with the opinions of 
the majority. It must also be remembered that socialists 
who are fired with missionary zeal join the organization pur- 
posely to make converts to their faith. Again, when various 
theories of government are discussed earnestly by men whose 
circumstances render them comparatively unprejudiced, it 
is in the nature of things that some should adopt one set of 
ideas, and some another, and there is no cause of alarm in 
this. The intellectual stagnation which would follow the 
cessation of debate and discussion is something far more to 
be dreaded. 

The Declaration of Principles of the Knights of Labor 
means, undoubtedly, socialism, if one draws the logical con- 
clusion of these statements, and one might be inclined to 
class them all as socialists at once ; but this would be a serious 
mistake. They do not bring their socialism forward promi- 
nently; many do not even see that their principles imply 



STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 283 

socialism ; some of them are violently opposed to the theory 
itself, and many more to the name ; while some do not think 
at all on the subject. I imagine the best thinkers among 
them might object to a classification of the Knights as social- 
ists somewhat in these words : " Yes, our Declaration of 
Principles undoubtedly means socialism, but, after all, it is 
not fair to call us socialists, in the ordinary sense of the 
word. Like John Stuart Mill, we contemplate socialism only 
as a dim and distant ideal, but not as anything capable of 
realization in the present.' ' 

What is said of the Knights of Labor holds equally with 
reference to the North American Gymnastic Union, although 
it may be that the socialism of this body is more pronounced. 
Some of the local unions are avowedly socialistic. 

The theory of the inalienable right of the people to the 
original properties of the soil, as advocated by Henry George 
in his remarkable book, " Progress and Poverty," cannot be 
omitted in an account of American socialism, although the 
realization of the plans of George and his followers would 
inaugurate only a partial socialism, not complete or pure 
socialism. It is proposed that society should resume owner- 
ship of the soil by a tax equal to the rental value of land. 
The revenues obtained are to be used to benefit the people 
as a whole, and this would involve an enormous increase of 
State functions along certain lines. I believe the ownership 
of the means of communication and transportation is 
regarded by Henry George as an essential part of his theory. 
It must be noticed that the intervention of government would 
be decreased in many fields of industry, inasmuch as all taxa- 
tion, except that on. land, would be abolished. This feature 
of the theory may, perhaps, commend it to manufacturers. 
" Progress and Poverty " has not been published ten years, 
yet it is now possible to affirm without hesitation that the ap- 



284 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

pearance of that one book formed a noteworthy epoch in the 
history of economic thought both in England and America. 
It is written in an easily understood and brilliant style, is 
published in cheap editions both in England and America, 
and in each country has attained a circulation which for an 
economic work is without precedent. Tens of thousands of 
laborers have read " Progress and Poverty " who never before 
looked between the covers of an economic book, and its 
conclusions are widely accepted articles in the workingman's 
creed. But there is reason to think that the number of ad- 
herents outside of the laboring classes is relatively, quite as 
large. Men of all occupations are included, — manufac- 
turers, lawyers, merchants, physicians, divines. An organ- 
ization for the realization of the principles of " Progress 
and Poverty" has been formed, called the "Tax Reform 
League." Several newspapers, including at least one daily, 
support the theory of " Tax Reform," as it is inadequately 
but rather euphemistically called. 

Mention must further be made of the fact that socialists 
not connected with any party are found in all ranks of soci- 
ety. One comes upon them everywhere, — in the theological 
seminary, in the law school, in the merchant's counting- 
room, in the manufacturer's office ; and, though all together 
they constitute a small fraction of the people, one whose atti- 
tude is not such as to repel all confidence will be surprised 
to find so many. College graduates are included among 
the socialists, and (I mention it for what it is worth) I am 
inclined to think, judging from such observations as I have 
been able to make, that those institutions of learning will 
be found to turn out the most socialists where the students 
are taught so to abhor it that any frank and full discussion 
of its merits and its defects becomes impossible. 

Socialism has made but slight progress among agricul- 



STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 285 

turists ; yet the ground is ripe for it in parts of this country. 
A gentleman of most careful habits of observation, and a 
representative of the class of large landholders in Illinois, 
assures the writer that although there is no organized social- 
ism or understanding of any theoretical body of socialistic 
doctrines among the agricultural laborers in his State, three- 
fourths of them are in such a frame of mind as to be easy 
converts even to quite radical socialism. Wherever there 
are latifundia, agricultural laborers will be found accessible 
to the arguments of socialists. It has been the case in 
Spain and Italy, and there is reason to fear that it will prove 
to be so in our own West to an even more alarming extent in 
future years. 1 

The reader now has the more important data used in my 
estimate. 

Passing on to the Internationalists, it may be safely 
said that no one knows their precise strength. There 
are groups in every part of the United States ; but the 
ties connecting them are so loose that there is no reason 
to think that even the " Bureau of Information " could have 
ever given the location of all of them, much less the total 
number of their adherents. It is possible that each of the 
two parties of the Internationalists may have embraced ten 
or fifteen thousand members, including all conected with 
them by even a loose tie, and quite likely there are two or 
three hundred thousand people among us who sympathize 
with their general aims. 

It is frequently stated that we have nothing to fear from 
socialism, because most socialists in America are foreigners. 
What is the significance of this fact ? It means something, 
but not so much as a superficial observer would suppose. 
We did not have socialists of our present type in the earlier 
1 See Laveleye's " Socialism of To-day," pp. 222, 232. 



286 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

period of our history, because the socialism of to-day is itself 
something new. This theory of society, which is now a 
subject of much grave anxiety to the civilized world, is 
scarcely forty years old. The conditions were not ripe for it 
in other countries in earlier ages, much less in the United 
States. To-day one of the principal reasons why our social- 
ists are for the most part foreigners is because our laboring 
population consists chiefly of men and women of foreign 
birth or foreign parentage, and the bulk of socialistic parties 
is always composed of working people. Some lines of pro- 
duction in industrial centres are almost entirely carried on 
by laborers of European birth or parentage. Is there any- 
thing in our institutions to change the sentiments of our 
laboring classes, and to induce them to abandon socialism? 
Let us indulge in no illusions. There is no valid reason to 
suppose that a republican form of government is in itself less 
congenial to socialism than a monarchical ; and if socialists 
disappear in the United States, it will be something else than 
our existing political institutions which will bring about this 
consummation. They are far more likely to increase than 
decrease in number as population grows denser, and the try- 
ing times prophesied by Macaulay and Huxley 1 come upon 
us. Nevertheless, there is ground for the hope that in time 
the violent hostility of Anarchists to the most cherished pos- 
sessions of our civilization will become less pronounced in 
America. American workmen will sooner or later perceive 
that the Christian Church is not hostile to their just aspira- 
tions, but rather their best friend. There is much that is 
cheerful and promising in the present awakening of our 
churches to their duty to those for whose benefit Christianity 
was specially proclaimed in the first days of its history. 
Europeans coming to our shores will yet learn that a state 
1 In his opening address at the Johns Hopkins University in 1876. 



STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 287 

church, supported as the tool of despotism, is one thing, and 
that the Gospel of Christ is quite another thing. Second, it 
may be anticipated that republican institutions will teach 
those who enjoy them that there are better methods than 
violence of securing the reforms which the people really de- 
sire. Third, the determined effort to reform our divorce laws, 
and purify and elevate the family, which is now making, will 
show that over-hasty conclusions drawn from corrupt and 
rotten society are erroneous, — at any rate, if there are the 
capabilities for good in the American character which we 
all hope. 

" From socialism, as such, the American people, in the 
writer's opinion, have nothing to fear. So long as socialists 
confine themselves to peaceful methods there is no reason 
why their right of free speech should be abridged or even 
feared. It were wiser to seek to learn anything from them 
which they have to teach than to become alarmed. It is 
the glory of America that she has faith to believe that only 
such institutions as rest upon sound common sense and 
approved experience will be supported by the people." * 

There are several reasons for this opinion. Peaceful social- 
ism can be introduced only by degrees in a slow and gradual 
growth, and we are so far from it, that some advocates, like 
Lassalle and Rodbertus, speak about a full realization of 
their aims after the expiration of two, three, and even five 
hundred years. Now, if our descendants, generations hence, 
are convinced, as a result of successive experimental steps, 
that pure socialism is the best industrial form, it certainly 
need give us no concern, and it were foolish to pass a single 
sleepless night in lamentations over the prospect. We all 
hope that our children's children, — in short, all future genera- 

1 Quoted from my article on " Socialism in America " in the North 
American Review for June, 1886. 



288 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

tions, — will be even more capable than their ancestry to man- 
age the affairs of their own age. Second, socialism, when 
stripped of all accessories, is simply a theory of industrial 
society, and if it could be shown that it is a better form of 
economic life than our present imperfect system, it ought to 
be welcomed most heartily. I, for my part, do not believe 
that this is true ; but I fail to see any valid reason why a man 
who thinks so should be subject to reproach. On the con- 
trary, I see great harm, possibilities of terrible disaster in 
any serious attempt to suppress free and open inquiry, and 
to drive error into those gloomy and subterranean channels, 
where it grows and expands in a congenial atmosphere until 
it breaks forth in volcanic eruptions. 

Finally, the really dangerous forces at work among us are 
those of disintegration, — the centrifugal not the centripetal. 
Now, the whole aim and purpose of socialism is a closer 
union of social factors, and so thoroughly convinced am I 
that the present need is growth in that direction, so 
thoroughly persuaded am I that there is no present danger, 
that we shall advance far enough towards the goal of socialism 
to intrench on the sphere of the individual, or to commit 
any irreparable injury, that I could almost say welcome the 
work of the socialist as a necessary and beneficial bulwark 
against the anarchy of individualism. 1 

1 The members of the Socialistic Labor Party realize full well that 
they have little in common with the Anarchists. A pamphlet has 
recently been published by the National Executive Committee of this 
party, entitled "Socialism and Anarchism — Antagonistic Opposites." 
In the first paragraph, the writer says: " Socialism and anarchism are 
opposites. . . . Socialists and Anarchists, as such, are enemies. They 
pursue contrary aims, and the success of the former will forever destroy 
the fanatical hopes of the latter." The Socialists are weak in Chicago 
because the Anarchists are strong. They claim that if they had had more 
influence in that cky, the horrible tragedy of May 4 would never 



STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 289 

But if socialism in itself is not to be feared, quite the 
opposite is the case with respect to the violence of the 
Internationalists. 

It is evident that there is no danger in any near ^future, — 
probably not in the lifetime of any who read this, — of a total 
overthrow of republican institutions in this land. Giving 
the men of violence credit for all the forces they can pos- 
sibly claim, they could muster under their banners only a 
comparatively small part of the population, and this com- 
posed of men scattered from Maine to California, and from 
Michigan to Georgia, and chiefly raw, undrilled laborers, 
without competent leaders, or the resources which are the 
sinews of war. But does it consequently follow that they 
could do no serious damage? Let him who thinks so 
remember the loss of life and property in 1877, the latter 
estimated at not less than one hundred millions of dollars. 
Now that is exactly what we have to fear, another 1877 ; and 
this is precisely that for which the Anarchists are preparing. 
It is a refrain which one finds repeatedly in all their publi- 
cations : " Get ready for another 1877 — buy a musket for a 
repetition of 1877." "Buy dynamite for a second 1877." 
" Organize companies and drill, to be ready for a recurrence 
of the riots of 1877." 

Truth, in its number for Dec. 15, 1883, published an 
article entitled : " Street Fighting. — How to use the Military 
Forces of Capital when it is Necessary ! — Military Tactics 
for the Lower Classes." It purports to be written by an 
officer in the United States army, and a military authority 
informs the writer, that the substance of this article, although 
possessing little merit, is not of such a character as to render 
this impossible. It suggests new methods of building barri- 

have occurred. It is true that they have condemned every proposal of 
such acts as madness. 



290 THE LABOR MOVEMENT, 

cades, and improved methods of meeting attacking troops. 
Numerous and apparently reasonable diagrams are given. 
" Military knowledge/' says the officer in the army of the 
United States, " has become popularized a little even since 
1877, and it would not be hard to find, in every large city of 
the world to-day, upon the side of the people, some fair 
leaders capable of meeting the enemy in some such way as 
this." Then follows one of the diagrams. 

The Vorbote has recently published a series of articles on 
the arming of the people. One^sentiment often repeated 
is this : " We have shown too much mercy in the past. Our 
generous pity has cost us our cause. Let us be relentless in 
the coming struggle." 

Truth, in its issue dated Nov. 3, 1883, quotes Felix 
Pyat to this effect : " We have the right, we have the power ; 
defend it, employ it ! without reserve, without remorse, 
without scruples, without mercy. . . . War to the extreme, 
to the knife. A question of life or death, for one of the two 
shall rest on the spot. . . . For the good of the people, iron 
and fire. All arms are human, all forces legitimate, and all 
means sacred. We desire peace ; the enemy wants war. 
He may have it absolutely. Killing, burning — all means 
are justifiable. Use them ; then will be peace ! " 

The revolutionists claim that while the first 1877 took 
them unawares, they will be armed to the teeth and ready 
for the second, which will usher in the dawn of a new civili- 
zation. It is surprising that many of them in their fury and 
fanaticism, expect the present generation will not pass away 
until all their dreams are fulfilled, and not one stone of our 
old civilization is left on another. There is no doubt about 
their terrible earnestness. One of them addressed recently 
an epistle to the writer, demanding of him whether in the 
coming conflict he would be found fighting on the side of 



STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 291 

the oppressed or the oppressor, — " on the side of socialism 
or capitalism." In fact, a very little association and famil- 
iarity with the socialists is sufficient to convince one of their 
earnestness, as well as of the fact that property does not, by 
any means, invariably make conservatives of men. 

Now can there be any doubt about the seriousness of the 
situation ? If it were known that one thousand men, like the 
notorious train robbers, the James' boys, were in small 
groups scattered over the United States, would not every 
conservative and peace-loving householder be filled with 
alarm, and reasonably so ? Yet here we have more than ten 
times that number educated to think robbery, arson, and 
murder justifiable, nay, even righteous ; taught to believe the 
slaughter of the ruling classes a holy work, and prepared to 
follow it with all the fanaticism of religious devotion, ready 
to die if need be, and prepared to stifle all feelings of grati- 
tude and natural affection, and to kill with their own hands 
every opponent of the grand cause. It is, indeed, as Presi- 
dent White has pointed out, an anomaly in our legislation, 
that it is lawful for a man like John Most to preach whole- 
sale massacre, while it is criminal for A to incite B to slay C. 
And this Most x is the lion among the extremists in the 
United States ; this man who, on account of his excessive 
violence, was repudiated by his own countrymen, and almost 
unanimously expelled from the social democratic party of 
Germany. There are those who, when extensive and riotous 
strikes again occur, will remember the teachings which are 
entering into their flesh and blood, yes, into their very soul, 
and will take their muskets and their dynamite, and " descend 

1 Most continued to sink in the estimation even of the Anarchists, — 
even still more of the laboring classes, by whom he had always been 
abhorred, — until his imprisonment which has done a little — not 
much — to restore him to favor. 



292 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

into the streets," and, thinking the great day has arrived, 
will cast about right and left, and seek to demolish, to anni- 
hilate all the forces and resources of wealth and civilization. 1 
While the result will be their inevitable defeat, it will cause 
sorrow and bloodshed to the defenders of our institutions, 
as well as to the rebels, and will drive further apart than ever 
before in this land, the two great classes of industrial society, 
— employers and employees. 2 

What we have to fear then is large loss of life, estrange- 
ment of classes, incalculable destruction of property, and a 
shock to the social body, which will be a serious check to our 
economic growth for years to come. 

Something more serious still is among the possibilities, for 
it should be understood that the civilization of modern times 
will be subjected to severer tests than those which have 
overthrown the glory of ancient states. It has been sup- 
posed that the accumulations of knowledge, of culture, of 
wealth could no longer be annihilated, because gunpowder 
and the implements of modern warfare have rendered it im- 
possible for savages and barbarians to vanquish advanced 
nations. This is true, but false is the not overwise conclu- 
sion so often drawn from this fact, that uninterrupted prog- 
ress of the race for all future time is a certainty. It is not 
always easy to read aright the lessons of human history ; but 
plain and clear, and unquestioned do the annals of the past 

1 At such a time, even one man may do vast damage. 

2 This entire paragraph is re-printed, without the change of a word, 
from my " Recent American Socialism," which was written early in 
1885. I think there has already been a partial realization of the fears 
there expressed. Of course, the Chicago massacre occurs to every 
one; but those regions in America where there has been most violence 
in connection with recent strikes, have been precisely those, so far as 
I know, which have been most under the influences of the ideas of the 
Internationalists. 



STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 293 

reveal a power which "makes for righteousness," and which 
— call it what we will — passes judgment on the nations of 
the earth, and dooms those to decay and destruction which 
have ceased to help onward the growth of mankind. The 
moment advance stops, the seeds of final overthrow begin 
to take root in the soil. Now, I apprehend that what has 
been true of the past will hold good for the future. I 
believe that Almighty God — for thus do most of us call the 
supreme power revealed in history — still judges the nations 
of earth, and exacts more from them than ever before, be- 
cause of their grander opportunities. The dangers which 
threaten civilization have not disappeared ; their nature has 
changed. No longer do they proceed from without, but 
from within. Our foes are those of our own household. 
Threatening disasters are domestic, not foreign. 

The beginning of the wonderful inventions of the past four 
centuries was accompanied by equally marvellous discoveries 
of new and comparatively unoccupied lands — notably the 
entire Western Hemisphere. The march of civilization con- 
tinued its westward course, and first, in our day, is it begin- 
ning to double on itself. The Occident and the Orient now 
touch ; growth has been extensive ; now that the room for 
expansion is disappearing, it must become intensive ! * Pop- 
ulation becomes denser, and at the present rate of increase 
will, in a few generations, present a crowded appearance all 
the earth over; and, in the meantime, the power of one 
man to do injury is increasing with alarming rapidity. 

Again, the vicious character of certain elements which 
congregate in cities, is proverbial, and their viciousness grows 
with their opportunities. Did not Bismarck, indeed, long 
ago express the wish that all great cities, because hot-beds of 
revolution, should be swept off the surface of the earth ! 
1 Africa, as a field for settlement, may delay or turn the tide a little. 



294 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

We have found security in this country in the large number of 
rural homes but these diminish relatively with the growth of 
great cities, and it is precisely this growth which has char- 
acterized American progress. In 1790, -$.?> P er cent °f the 
population of the United States lived in cities; in 1880, 
22.5 ; in 1800, there were six American cities with a popula- 
tion of 8,000, or more; in 1880, 286. From 1790 to 1880, 
our entire population increased twelve-fold, but our urban 
population, eighty- six- fold. The growth of cities has not 
been peculiar to the United States^but has been common to 
the civilized world. It lies in the nature of our civilization, 
and can be retarded by no weak and foolish outcries. It is 
part and parcel of our economic development, and as such, 
is certain to continue in the future. Every new railway, 
every mechanical invention, every improved industrial pro- 
cess, concentrates the population in cities. 

This is not written to excite undue alarm, but to call 
attention to the nature of forces now at work in the world. 
There are many hopeful signs. The truth, in a single sen- 
tence, is this : the potentialities in the civilized world, either 
for good or for evil, are grand beyond historical precedent, 
and the use made of them depends largely upon the intel- 
lectual enlightenment and the ethical elevation of the pres- 
ent generation. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE REMEDIES. 

NOW arises that old question, What shall we do about 
it? Well, there is no simple, easily applied formula 
which will cure social evils, and any one who pretends to 
have at his command a panacea for the ailments of the 
body politic, is a quack worthy of no respect. 

Certainly it cannot be my purpose, in the few remaining 
pages of the present book, to present an elaborate scheme 
of social regeneration. My aim is a more modest one. It 
is only to give a few suggestions, scarcely more than hints, 
which may be useful to the reader, enabling him to contribute 
to a better utilization of the world's experience, and of 
established rules of moral conduct. 

First of all, it is a time for those men to keep quiet, who, 
little in heart and mind, have no better remedy for social 
phenomena which do not please them, than physical force. 
They fail absolutely to understand the age in which they 
live, and will involve us all in ruin, if allowed to execute their 
savage plans. This applies equally to men of all social 
classes. Nevertheless, legal repression has its own place. 
Outbreaks of violence must be repressed, and that even 
more for the sake of the workingmen themselves than for 
their employers \ for the preservation of law and order is an 
indispensable condition of the maintenance of such blessings 
as civilization has already brought us. If the law is some- 
times hard and unjust, the laborer should remember that 



296 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

without law we can have no state, and that the state alone 
can save us from that reign of anarchy, in which no bounds 
could be set to the oppression of the strong and cunning. 
There is, then, no doubt that punishment l should be meted 
out to those who violate the laws of the land, and exception- 
ally severe punishment to those who aim, by means of vio- 
lent action, at their total overthrow. But of more impor- 
tance than severity in the administration of criminal law, is 
certainty and celerity of punishment. This is not likely to 
be disputed, but when we come tq^agitation and incitement 
to revolution in a general way, there is more disagreement 
in regard to the course to be pursued. However, it is safe 
to say that the outcome of past experience is against legal 
interference with theorists before they proceed to overt acts. 
With ten times more favorable opportunities than exist in 
the United States, Bismarck has tried the enactment of 
severe laws against the socialists in Germany, but with 
very unsatisfactory results ; so unsatisfactory that it may 
be questioned whether he has not strengthened the social 
democrats. He has rendered several services to them ; he 
has united hostile factions into one compact party ; he has, 
in his persecutions, enabled them to pose as martyrs, and 
actually to feel themselves such, and that is a great source 
of strength ; finally, he has made propaganda for them, and 
drawn to them the sympathies of well-meaning people. 

Every possible obstacle to their political action has had 
this result. They have elected the largest number of mem- 
bers of Parliament, since these laws against them were in 
force. Russia, France, and Germany, all serve as warning 
against restrictions upon the socialists in the United States. 

This leads naturally to the recent endeavors to suppress 

1 Yet mitigating circumstances may be considered. Justice, when 
tempered with mercy, is strongest. 



THE REMEDIES. 1W 

the boycott, by the infliction of imprisonment upon those 
guilty of the offence. What has it accomplished ? First, it 
is important to know the view which the laborers take of 
the boycott, and the impression which the severe sentences 
upon their companions has produced. I will state their 
case in a few words. 

The boycott has been employed against obnoxious indi- 
viduals from time immemorial. In 1327 the citizens of 
Canterbury, England, boycotted the monks of Christ's 
church, meeting in an open field, and passing these resolu- 
tions among others : " That no one, under penalties to be 
imposed by the city, should inhabit the prior's houses ; that 
no one should buy, sell, or exchange drinks or victuals with 
the monastery, under similar penalties." The history of the 
United States may almost be said to open with a boycott of 
English tea and other wares, which, approved and supported 
by our best and most patriotic citizens, has been repeated 
several times. 1 A systematic boycott of slave-made prod- 
ucts was begun by the abolitionists fifty years ago. 2 Temper- 
ance people have used the boycott to repress the liquor nui- 
sance time and time again, and men who have endeavored 
to draw profit from the corruption of young people, have 
been driven from their homes by this weapon. Clergymen 
have employed the boycott repeatedly, and they have 
recently recommended that it be directed against the Sun- 
day newspaper. Railways have entered into combinations, 
and have aided one another to boycott innocent members of 
the community and other companies. Associations of business 

1 "Thus was the boycott born in the cradle of American liberty." 
— Quoted from Workmen's Advocate. 

2 See the " Sisters Grimke," by Catherine H. Birney, Boston, 1885, 
and other works on the anti-slavery agitation. A store was established 
in Baltimore to aid the boycott. 



298 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

men have often boycotted those who would not unite with 
them in some money-making scheme. 1 Above all, there is 
the long-standing boycott of labor, known as the black-list, 
which has ruined thousands of poor workingmen. Now, 
none of these men who have taught us the use of the boy- 
cott, say the laborers, have been punished, although their 
conspiracy at t a well known; but as soon as we begin to 
employ u^ weapon against our oppressors, there is a howl 
from Maine to California, and our brave friends are sent 
to the penitentiary, like common^ criminals. This is not 
justice ; it is class hate. Before, the poor man's ox was 
gored ; now, the rich man's. That is the sole and only dif- 
ference. We have done no wrong. We have simply let 
people alone who have injured us, and appealed to public 
opinion to support us in resistance to tyranny and oppres- 
sion. The charge of extortion is simply trumped up against 
us. The money received was to defray the expenses of a 
course of action forced upon us, and to mitigate the suffer- 
ing caused thereby to workingmen. It was an amicable 
adjustment of grievances, such as takes place every day. 
As well imprison the employer who extorts money from his 
employees for injuries caused by bad work or tardiness, or 
for other causes often imaginary ! 

Now, having presented the laborer's view, not my own, I 

1 The labor papers cite as an example the " National Burial Case 
Association/' and one of them, the Labor Bulletin, reprints a circular 
of this body in which it is resolved " That the members of this association 
pledge themselves not to buy a coffin, hardware, dry goods, metallics, 
glass, varnishes, or other supplies, of any firm or corporation who sells 
to non-members of this association, who are selling goods at less 
prices than the association list." Four boycotted firms are named in 
the circular. A boycotted undertaker has recently brought his case 
before the courts in New York. Innumerable examples of the boycott 
of every kind may be found in the labor press. 



THE REMEDIES. 299 

will give a few quotations to show the impression made on 
the laboring classes by the recent action of the courts : — 

" The boycott will be continued, but with increased severity. 
If an indemnification for the expenses of the boycott is regarded 
as extortion, nothing will remain but to boycott until the of- 
fender is completely ruined, in order that others )bnoxj\ke warn- 
ing therefrom." — Bakers' Journal. u ~ 

44 The sentences of the five boycotters of Theiss ... to unusu- 
ally long terms of imprisonment, is seed sown by the party of 
money-bags, which will not bring forth roses. The expectation 
that this severe punishment would discourage the laborers rests 
upon a weak footing. . . . The laborers will become more than 
ever convinced, that justice is meted out with one measure to 
them, and with another to those who have money. Bitterness 
will unite them more strongly than ever before. The idea that 
they are citizens of a free republic, with equal rights, will vanish, 
and the conviction will arise that here, also, the struggle of class 
has begun. . . . Formerly, the laborers were not so united as 
they should have been, but now they will become united. The 
movement becomes serious. . . . Persecution has strengthened 
the labor parties in Germany and France, and made them irre- 
sistible. This will happen here, and it is good!" — Bakers 1 
Journal. 

"The sentence passed on the boycotters has poured flaming 
fire into the hearts of the workingmen in New York, and has 
driven to the background all differences in labor's camp. It has 
united the many-voiced choir of the organizations in a single 
powerful cry of indignation." — The Socialist. 

"Atrocious Judges. 

" There was a book published before the war . . . under the 
title of ' Atrocious Judges,' which described the judicial reptiles 
of the pro-slavery bench, who were then foremost in hounding 
slaves and persecuting their friends. It was a book of terrific 
records, from those of the ever-infamous Jeffries down to those 



300 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

* 

of Taney, who found that ' negroes had no rights which white men 
were bound to respect. 1 

"It seems about time to get out a new edition of that book, 
with the new names of the ATROCIOUS JUDGES who are 
chronicling their own shame in the pro-capitalist decisions of 
these times." — John Swintori s Paper ; June 13, 1886. 

"THE LEAP IN THE DARK. 



" Barrett's War of Crushing the Boycotters. 



" How A Trickster's Statute was^used by a Vindictive Judge 
"to brand Five Honest Workingmen. 



" The vindictiveness of the ruling classes has found expression 
in the condemnation of five workingmen to various terms of im- 
prisonment with hard labor at Sing Sing. It would be difficult 
to imagine a more flagrant outrage of every sense of justice in 
the name of 'law and order,' a more cruel exercise of power 
upon a false pretence, or conduct more impolitic on the part of 
officials charged with a delicate duty, and invested with wide dis- 
cretion, in the case of these Theiss boycotters, whom class hate 
has branded as felons. . . . ' Whom the gods would destroy, they 
first make mad. 1 " — John Swintori* s Paper. 

This is sufficient to show the impression produced. " But 
what is your opinion? " the reader asks. 

It seems to me, first, that the boycott is wrong ; — at any 
rate, as it has been conducted. It may be right for people 
to appeal to public opinion, to put down a gross abuse in a 
quiet and orderly manner. If clergymen think the Sunday 
newspaper a sin, it is their duty to advise people not to pat- 
ronize it ; but to distribute circulars, and fairly force the 
customers of a man to leave him, is a different matter. It 
condemns a man untried, and is liable to the grossest abuses, 
calculated to injure employer and employed, and the general 



THE REMEDIES. 301 

public in addition. At best, it is a doubtful remedy. It is 
a movement in precisely the wrong direction. 

Nevertheless, it is not so clear that a law should be passed 
declaring boycotting illegal. Professor von Waltershausen, 
of the University of Zurich, a man of ability, who has given 
the American labor movement more careful study, probably, 
than any other man in Europe, 1 after a painstaking examina- 
tion of the subject, pronounced against it, although recog- 
nizing the gravity of the evil, because he thought it would 
turn the laborers against the State ; and if political science 
teaches one lesson more clearly than another, it is the danger 
of implanting hostility to government, as such, in the hearts 
of the masses. 

It seems to me that the whole subject should have been 
carefully discussed in our legislatures, and laws enacted to 
restrain the excesses of the boycott. As to the course 
which has been taken, I would not be misunderstood, 
when I express the opinion, that American history records 
few more disastrous mistakes, and that I fear greatly we 
shall see sad consequences of it within ten years, sadder 
still within twenty years, unless more powerful conservative 
forces are brought into action than are now manifest. I join 
in no condemnation of a judge whose personal character or 
official integrity may, for aught I know, be beyond question. 
I can readily understand that he may have done with pain 
what he thought his duty in a crisis in American history. I 
simply say that I think he committed an error of judg- 
ment. What is the result? He has united, as never before 
in America, the laborers in one solid mass, and he has given 
the entire labor movement a most unfortunate impulse 
towards radicalism. This may be seen in a thousand dif- 

1 He has brought out a book entitled " Die Nord Amerikanischen 
Gewerkschaften," Berlin, 1886. 



302 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

ferent ways. One is the recent attendance of thousands 
at a mass- meeting, called by socialists in New York to, 
condemn the action of the courts in the case of the boy- 
cotters, and the harmonious action of socialists and work- 
ingmen in that city. Nothing else could have brought this 
about. The conservative elements among the laborers, like 
Powderly and many editors of labor papers, and their 
friends, like Washington Gladden, Heber Newton, Howard 
Crosby, Lyman Abbott, — all, by the way, clergymen, — 
were earnestly admonishing the laborers to pursue a legal and 
even a conciliatory course. The boycott was condemned 
again and again by laborers, as injurious even to those who 
used it, and as unjust, and there was every prospect of a 
restriction and regulation of the boycott all along the line. 
Now, the conservatives find the work of years overthrown. 
There is a howl among the Anarchists from Boston to San 
Francisco : " Ho, ye fools ! ye men of law and order ! 
What have we always told you ? Law is only for the poor ! 
It is the rich man's instrument of oppression." And to-day 
there is a sympathy among workingmen for the Chicago 
Anarchists on trial for a brutal massacre of the authorities, 
which would have seemed inconceivable six months since. 
Never have I seen such indignation among the masses, 
although I was in Germany when the anti-socialistic law of 
1878 was passed. There the matter was fully discussed, 
and a law, clear and precise in its terms, was passed, and 
published in every nook and corner of the land. Cruel and 
unjust, it doubtless was considered, but no one could dispute 
that it was law. The judicial decisions in New York do not 
appeal to the working classes as interpretations of actual 
law, but as a perversion of law for class purposes. 

From Truth of Jan. 26, 1884, and a recent number 
of the Sozialist, we may gain a hint as to the true policy. 



THE REMEDIES. 303 

In speaking of the indiscriminate use of dynamite as 
a means of propaganda, Truth says : " Its effect would 
be directly reactionary. Either it would induce repressive 
laws, abrogating the rights we have now, which permit us to 
spread our doctrines, or it would wring from the fears of the 
bourgeoisie such ameliorative measures as might postpone for 
centuries the final struggle for complete emancipation" The 
Sozialist of Jan. 3, 1885, predicts that they, the social- 
ists, will obtain assistance in their propaganda from their 
enemies, who will increase discontent among the masses, 
and thus prepare heart and mind for the seed they expect 
to sow. 

The two words used by Truth, " ameliorative measures," 
indicate the correct method of dealing with social problems. 
We must listen to complaints of those who feel that they 
are oppressed, and not suppose that the demands of even 
socialists are unjust, simply because they are made by 
socialists. Who can object to them when they complain 
because they are not allowed to rest one day out of seven ; 
because child-labor is tolerated ; because families are scat- 
tered in workshops, and family life in any true sense of the 
word becomes an impossibility? It would indeed be well 
could every rich and well-to-do person be persuaded to 
listen to their complaints as they appear in their papers, in 
order to know how they feel and what they suffer l ; or if 
the wealthy could more generally be induced to examine for 

1 If every man and woman of social standing superior to that of the 
working classes, could be persuaded to read a paper like John Swin- 
torfs Paper, the Haverhill (Mass.) Laborer, the Baltimore Labor 
Free Press, or others which I might name, and every intelligent 
laborer could be induced to read the writings of men like Lyman 
Abbott, Howard Crosby, Washington Gladden, T. Edwin Brown, and 
Newman Smyth, true progress in the future would be assured. 



304 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

themselves the way poor and honest people are often 
obliged to live. Let the careless and indifferent but read 
the articles which lately appeared in the Christian Union, on 
the condition of the poor in American cities, or a single 
pamphlet like "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," de- 
scribing the life of the London laborer from the observation 
of city missionaries, and issued by the London Congrega- 
tional Union ! l And if he thinks, as is too often said, that 
the laborers become accustomed to their lot and contented, 
let him but read their utterances in the labor press, or listen 
to them in their meetings ! There are certain things a man 
can never get used to, as for example, an empty stomach 
and a home without fire. When poverty is extreme, it often 
sinks more and more deeply into the consciousness of the 
sufferer, and the burden grows with the weight of years. 

Then it must not be forgotten that this age is not as other 
ages. There has been great progress in the intelligence of 
the laboring classes, and political equality has stimulated the 
desires of the masses for a larger share of material riches. 
The means of production have been improved in a marvel- 
lous manner, and the increase of wealth has been enormous. 
The question the laborer asks is not simply whether he 
receives more absolutely, but whether he receives as much 
in proportion to what the other classes of society enjoy. 
His wants have grown, and he is inclined to doubt whether 
he is as well able to gratify his legitimate needs as formerly. 
There may have been a time, for example, when he could 
not read. Then it was no hardship to him that he was 
unable to buy books. The case is different now. 

We ought, then, to listen to the demands the socialists and 
the laboring classes generally make of the present state, and 

1 See also "The Bitter Cry of the Poor in New York," by Mrs. J. 
R. Lowell, Christian Union, March 26, 1885. 



THE REMEDIES, 305 

discuss them in a spirit of candor, and grant them in so far 
as they may be just. It has already been seen what the 
Socialistic Labor Party desires of society in its present form, 
and while it may be true that few political economists would 
assent to the practicability of all the measures they advocate, 
they are certainly worthy of discussion. Undoubtedly, one 
often meets with radical and apparently absurd propositions 
in the perusal of labor literature, but, on the other hand, one 
discovers at times a surprising spirit of conservatism, and is 
obliged to admit that many demands are perfectly legiti 
mate, as the following " Platform and Supplementary Reso- 
lutions " of the Federation of Trades and Labor Unions 
abundantly prove. 

" Platform. 

"i. The national eight-hour law is one intended to benefit 
labor, and to relieve it partly of its heavy burdens, and the eva- 
sion of its true spirit and intent is contrary to the best interests 
of the nation. We therefore demand the enforcement of said 
law in the spirit of its designers, and urge the enactment of 
eight-hour laws by State Legislatures and municipal corporations. 

" 2. We demand the passage of laws in State Legislatures 
and in Congress for the incorporation of trades and labor unions, 
in order that the property of the laboring classes may have the 
same protection as the property of other classes. 

M 3. We demand the passage of such legislative enactments 
as will enforce, by compulsion, the education of children, for if 
the State has the right to exact certain compliance with its de- 
mands, then it is also the duty of the State to educate its people 
to the proper understanding of such demands. 

"4. We demand the passage of laws in the several States 
forbidding the employment of children under the age of four- 
teen years, in any capacity, under penalty of fine and imprison- 
ment. 

" 5. "We demand the enactment of uniform apprentice laws 



306 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

throughout the country; that the apprentice to a mechanical 
trade may be made to serve a sufficient term of apprenticeship, 
and be provided by his employer, in his progress to maturity, 
with proper and sufficient facilities to finish him as a competent 
workman. 

" 6. It is hereby declared the sense of this congress that con- 
vict or prison contract labor is a species of slavery in its worst 
form ; it pauperizes labor, demoralizes the honest manufacturer, 
and degrades the very criminal whom it employs ; and as many 
articles of use and consumption made in our prisons under the 
contract system, come directly and detrimentally in competition 
with the products of honest labor, we demand that the laws 
providing for labor under the contract systems herein com- 
plained of be repealed. 

•' 7. What is known as the ' order ' or i truck ' system of pay- 
ment, instead of lawful currency as value for labor performed, is 
one not only of gross imposition, but of downright swindle to 
the honest laborer and mechanic, and we demand its entire 
abolition. Active measures should be taken to eradicate the 
evil, by the passage of laws imposing fine and imprisonment 
upon all individuals, firms, or corporations who continue to 
practice the same. 

" 8. We demand the passage of such laws as will secure to the 
mechanic and workingman the first lien upon property, the prod- 
uct of his labor, sufficient in all cases to justify his legal and just 
claims. 

41 9. We demand the repeal and erasure from the statute 
books of all acts known as conspiracy laws, as applied to organ- 
izations of labor in the regulation of wages. 

44 10. We recognize the wholesome effects of a Bureau of 
Labor Statistics, as created by the National Government and in 
several States, and recommend for their management the 
appointment of a proper person, identified with the laboring 
classes of the country. 

" 11. We demand the passage of a law by the United States 
Congress to prevent the importation of all foreign laborers under 
contract. 






THE REMEDIES. 307 

"12. We declare that the system of letting out national, 
State, and municipal work by contract tends to intensify the 
competition between workmen, and we demand the speedy 
abolishment of the same. 

"13. We demand the passage by our various legislative 
bodies of an employers' liability act, which shall give employees 
the same right to damages for personal injuries that all other 
persons have. 

" 14. We recommend all trades and labor organizations to 
secure proper representation in all law-making bodies, by means 
of the ballot, and to use all honorable measures by which this 
result can be accomplished. 

" Supplementary Resolutions. 

" 1. That we urge upon the Legislatures of our several States 
the passage of laws of license upon stationary engineers, and 
the enforcement of proper restrictions, which will better preserve 
and render protection to life and property. 

" 2. That we demand strict laws for the inspection and ven- 
tilation ot mines, factories and workshops, and sanitary supervi- 
sion of all food and dwellings. 

"3. We demand of our representatives in the National Leg- 
islature that they declare such land grants as are not earned by 
railroads or corporations forfeited, and to restore the same to the 
public domain." 

The complaints of the socialists are often but too well 
grounded, when they criticise things as they are. Our 
laws regulating joint-stock corporations, for example, sadly 
need reforming, so as to prevent much dishonest manipula- 
tion of joint-stock concerns which might easily be avoided. 
One ought to be indignant when one sees familiar opera- 
tions like this : A company is established ; a few get con' 
trol of the management ; declare an unearned dividend ; 
pay it out of the capital ; then unload and acquire wealth at 



308 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

the expense of the widow, the orphan, and the toiler. 1 It is 
needless to multiply examples. If we turn to our govern- 
ments, we shall find in Star Route contracts and Tweed 
ring frauds, much to help us to understand why some 
people have gradually come to desire the overthrow of all 
that exists of human contrivances, as preliminary to a new 
era. 2 

Happily, much is being done to remedy abuses, and in 
many quarters a most hopeful desire is manifest to bring 
wealthy criminals to justice and to strjve for needed reforms ; 
and if the leaders of society evince an increasing willingness 
to listen to grievances of labor, to discuss their propositions 
and redress their wrongs, they will draw away from violent 
agitators the strongest and best of the workingmen, and ren- 
der the revolutionists comparatively harmless. To cite a-n ex- 
ample, no one can withstand the devotion of a life like 
Peter Cooper's, and it was touching to read the evidences 
of the appreciation of his deeds on the part of the laboring 
classes. Even Truth contained an obituary notice of him, 
in which the highest and most unreserved praise was 
accorded to his deeds. 

The same journal contained a long and appreciative re- 
view of a book which had simply attempted to describe 
socialism impartially, with these words : " We hope the book 

1 I have spent part of several summers in a little village where pre« 
cisely that thing was done a few years ago. It is a new experience to 
the inhabitants to see men guilty of a penitentiary offence, respected 
members of society. It may be doubted whether the town will in the 
future be quite what it has been in the past. 

2 These wrongs are directed against society as a whole, but there 
are abuses as grievous directed against the laboring classes as such. 
One of them recently occurred in Maryland, where the Miners' Venti- 
lation Bill was stolen after it had passed the Legislature, but before it 
received the governor's signature. 



THE REMEDIES. 309 

will be extensively read by socialists, and that each reader 
will profit by the unprejudiced manner in which the histori- 
cal facts and doctrinal matters are set forth, and that we 
shall learn to emulate the enemy in the coolness of our 
judgment and the calmness of our criticism. " On the other 
hand, a socialistic journalist informs the writer, that only one 
who has mingled, as he has, for years with the laboring 
classes, can form any conception of the harm done by a 
recent book, which treated social problems in quite a differ- 
ent spirit, putting the whole question of reform on an unfair 
basis, and treating the discontented with irritating impatience 
and stinging harshness. In the words of this journalist : 
" Mr. I regard as a bad man, one of the most dan- 
gerous of 'the dangerous classes.* Unless you mingled, as 
I have done, with the proletarians many years, and knew by 
experience their feelings, you could not conceive the in- 
finite injury such a man does to the cause he espouses. It 
inflames them more than standing armies and Gatling 
batteries.' ' 

It is true, a man was never won by cruel reproaches, and 
a strong government has its roots in the hearts of the people. 
It still holds that love is more powerful that hate. 

The laboring classes are accessible to arguments by those 
who understand them and really wish them well, and the 
columns of their papers are open to those who would influ- 
ence them for good. At present there is a grand opportu- 
nity for men to do good, which may not occur again, for 
the minds of the masses are still plastic, and their habits of 
thought are being formed. As Frederic Harrison says, the 
workingmen of our day are glad to listen to the word of one 
who comes to them as a friend, provided his message be 
not "the perpetual, monotonous lie, 'It is all very good 
and right/ " 



310 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

They are ready to learn the truth, and are grateful to 
those who try to help them. 1 To Christian people in par- 
ticular would I repeat words used on another occasion. When 
these laborers, who reject Christianity as it is in our churches, 
speak of Christ, it is often with touching reverence, as a 
noble soul who sympathized with the trials of their class. 
And when they denounce religion, they will affirm at times, 
"We are the only true Christians"; and I do believe that 
among the masses in America there never was such a hun- 
ger and thirst for real Christianityvas to-day. What they 
complain of in substance is, not that there is too much 
Christianity, but that there is too little ; not that people are 
Christians, but that there is such a divergence between pro- 
fession and practice, that the church has become " of the 
world " ; that it has (so they think) been captured by the 

1 Letters which I have received from workingmen in all parts of 
the United States, would move even a hard heart. Here is one from 
a poor mechanic, an adherent of Henry George, and save in the in- 
closure of money, it is merely typical. The reference is to some articles 
on co-operation. " I am very much pleased with the articles, not only 
for the information they give, but more especially because of the spirit 
of sympathy they evince towards all lawful endeavors of the workers 
to improve their condition. I am glad to see them in a religious paper 
(the Congregationalisi), without any sickly apology from the editor. 
I thank you for them. Wish I could send them to every one of my 
acquaintances. 

" I expect to start to-morrow for southern Kansas, to take up a claim; 
but I hope self-interest will never prevent me from doing all I can to 
advance the principle of common property in land. . . . Enclosed find 
$5.00, which you will please use for me in the cause of humanity, and 
oblige, Yours truly, ." 

Professor Brentano says that in spite of all that has been asserted to 
the contrary, it still remains true that before the enactment of the laws 
of 1878 German workingmen were always willing to listen to a manly, 
sympathetic word from one of another social class. 



THE REMEDIES. 311 

rich and made a part of the mechanism of fashion ; that 
pews have doors and locks, and that the aisles are guarded 
by ushers, not merely to show people in, but to keep them out ; 
that church privileges are sold — at times even literally auc- 
tioned off for money. 

A wider diffusion of sound ethics is an economic require- 
ment of the times. Christian morality is the only stable 
basis for a State professedly Christian. An ethical demand 
of the present age is a clearer perception of the duties of 
property, intelligence, and social position. It must be 
recognized that extreme individualism is immoral. Ex- 
treme individualism is social anarchy, and — to cite a com- 
parison recently made in Hopkins Hall — the first social 
Anarchist was Cain, who asked indignantly if he were his 
brother's keeper. Laissez-faire politics assure us we are 
not keepers of our brothers, that each one best promotes 
the general interest by best promoting his own. There are 
those who tell us in the name of science, that there is no 
duty which one class owes to another, and that the nations 
of the earth are mere collections of individuals, with no re- 
ciprocal rights and duties. It is time for right-thinking per- 
sons, and particularly for those who profess Christianity, to 
protest vigorously, in season and out of season, against such 
doctrines wherever found. As a friend, a professor in one 
of our leading colleges, forcibly puts it, the error of this 
school of political economists is that fundamental one of 
Herbert Spencer's ethical system, — "a determination to 
ignore law and its sanctions." 

A higher and more advanced political economy proclaims 
all this false, and asserts that within certain bounds we are 
obliged to concern ourselves about the welfare of others. 
Even less than law does political economy recognize any 
absolute proprietary rights, and in a higher ethical sense all 



312 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

our goods are but intrusted to us as stewards, to be adminis- 
tered in promoting the welfare of our fellow-men, as well as 
our own, and equally with our own. If the rulers of our 
society remember this and act upon it, they surely never need 
dread the laborer. 

When we pass in review the several thousand years of 
human history, we discover one feature of the progress of 
the race to be a gradual extension of the range of ethical 
ideas ; in other words, as the centuries have passed, man 
has included an ever-increasing portion of his fellows within 
the circle of those towards whom he feels bound to act in 
accordance with the data of ethics. Once moral obligations 
did not extend beyond the clan or tribe, and the same word 
signified enemy and stranger, but the tribe has finally given 
way to the nation, and those of the same nationality have 
felt drawn together with an ethical tie ; and in this century 
men feel, as never before, that all men of all kindreds and 
tongues on the face of the earth, are embraced within the 
sphere of reciprocal rights and duties. The word humanity 
means more to-day than at any past period in the history of 
the race. The extension of practical ethics has been ac- 
companied by an intensive growth. The stream has deep- 
ened. Yet the ethical ideas of most people move chiefly 
along horizontal lines, and do not extend up and down to 
those above and below them in rank or position. Social lines 
are considered ethical lines. There is one code for those in 
one class, and quite another one for those who are outside of 
this class. We are apt to recognize a more stringent law as 
binding upon us in our intercourse with one whom we regard 
as a social equal, though he be a native of a distant land, 
than with the resident of the same town, whom we consider 
as an inferior. The absolute ideal was given two thousand 
years ago by Christ, who established the most perfect 






THE REMEDIES. 313 

System of ethics the world has ever known. This ideal 
is the doctrine of human brotherhood, and its one 
universal, all-inclusive rule is, "All things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them." 

We are far from this ideal, and yet progress has been 
made. The condition of the laborer has gradually improved 
on the whole. He has passed through slavery and serfdom, 
and has in the civilized world become a free man. It is no 
longer regarded as morally right to hold those who work for 
us in the bonds of slavery. Yet we all transgress most 
grievously the law of brotherhood. Take the case of us 
who belong to social classes held to be superior to the work- 
ing class, — the educated and well-to-do. We judge our com- 
panions with one rule, and workingmen with quite another. 
Let us suppose there is a controversy between an employer 
and his employees. Do we not at once accept the statement 
of the employer, without any inquiry into the case as pre- 
sented by the employees ; whereas, if the dispute is between 
two employers, we suspend judgment until we hear both 
sides? Yet there is no evidence that the employers as a 
class are more truthful than their employees. The fact is, 
we are not yet ethically developed up to that point where it 
occurs to us that we are bound to hear the case of an inferior. 
But this is not all. Many of us, if we will not knowingly 
and maliciously lie about laborers, yet do not regard it as 
necessary to inquire too carefully about the stories we repeat. 
We take up our newspapers, which in controversies give the 
€x parte statements of employers, and just such garbled re- 
ports of the side of the employed as to present a specious 
appearance of impartiality, and at once eagerly swallow every 
hard and bitter word spoken in the heat of violent alterca- 
tion; then we solemnly proceed to damn the laboring 



314 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

classes, and all their wicked organizations. 1 Take two 
illustrations : The experiment of the mine-owners, Briggs 
Brothers, in England, in profit-sharing, is told in Mill's 
"Political Economy," and has become known the world 
over. That experiment has been abandoned, and the blame, 
almost as a matter of course, thrown on the workmen. 
Messrs. Briggs Brothers have told their story, and every 
newspaper has hastened to print it, and their interpretation 
of the difficulties has passed into text-books. Yet this is 
not wilfully malicious. It is due Jo imperfect ethical de- 
velopment. But now comes along a well-known English 
clergyman, Rev. Mr. Kaufmann, and tells us that it was not 
the fault of the laborers at all, for their employers demanded 
of them, as part of the agreement, conditions which they 
ought not to have accepted. It practically amounted to 
this : yield to us your freedom or lose your share in the 
profit ; and like true men they chose the latter alternative. 
Another is the case of the Messrs. Brewster, carriage 

1 I do not by any means wish to say that all our daily newspapers 
are wilfully partial. The journals in the town where I live, have, I 
think, on the whole tried to present an impartial record of current 
events, and to side with neither capitalist nor laborer, neither rich nor 
poor. One of these papers, in particular, incurred some hostility on 
account of its impartial attitude, as certain capitalists thought it ought 
to take their side. The good effect has, however, been seen. They 
have helped to maintain what I have called the unity of civilization, 
a certain oneness of feeling in the community. The rich may have 
become a little more radical, the poor a little more conservative; and 
I believe to-day there is not another great city in the United States 
where the feeling between classes is so near what it should be. I do 
not believe there is another city where capital is safer. 

Newspapers which appeal to the worst passions of the wealthy, 
teaching them to despise, distrust, and resist the humble social classes, 
are as dangerous as the incendiary sheets of the Anarchists, and 
should be unhesitatingly condemned and discountenanced by all who 
mean well. 



THE REMEDIES. 315 

manufacturers, of New York. They tried profit-sharing, and 
their workmen have been denounced in unmeasured terms 
for their stupidity and malignity in the adoption of such a 
course as to lead to the abandonment of an arrangement 
which yielded them so much. Now, I pass no judgment on 
the case, for I do not know the facts, still less would I assail 
the character of the Messrs. Brewster who are doubtless 
most estimable gentlemen; but this I do know, there are 
two sides to this controversy of which only one is recorded ; 
and it has come to my knowledge that a gentleman of New 
York of wealth and standing, intimately acquainted with all 
the facts, gives quite a different interpretation of them from 
the one so eagerly accepted. These are simply illustrations. 
If we exercised more charity in our judgments, it would be a 
good example which would react on the working classes. 1 

If we, too, could learn to take into account mitigating cir- 
cumstances when we pass judgment on the acts of the 
laborers, just as we do in other cases, our opinions might 
be very different. Laborers are suspicious and distrust- 
ful, it is said, and truly \ often they display bitterness against 
people of wealth and standing. Is it surprising? Would 
we, treated in the same manner, be different? Has not 
every reform for which they have struggled been opposed 
most strenuously by their industrial and social superiors, and 
that by means dishonest and contemptible as well as hon- 
orable? Yet when these reforms have come, they have 
been found to be of benefit to the whole of society, in 
cases even the salvation of society. Take child labor in 
England in the first half of this century. It was little less 
than murder. Nay, I go further : I believe, in the sight of 

1 "The morals of a community work downward from the higher 
classes." — Rev. Howard Crosby, D.D., in his article on "The Danger- 
ous Classes," in the North American Review », April, 1883. 



316 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

Almighty God, the cannibals of the Sandwich Islands were 
less guilty than those who, appreciating its terrors, knowingly, 
wilfully supported it ; for it, also, was a species of cannibal- 
ism, slow but more cruel, for the flesh and blood of the little 
ones were devoured piecemeal. Yet it required the strug- 
gle of a generation to pass laws forbidding it, and nothing 
is more disgusting than the evasive, shifting, lying course of 
its chief opponents. Then there was too the old cry of 
Mammon, — it would ruin trade and drive capital from Eng- 
land. 1 Well, the laborers and Jheir friends gained that 
point; then came the protection of women and the preser- 
vation of the homes ; again a long struggle, again a vic- 
tory which proved good ; then laws to protect the life and 
limb of employees in factories by regulations concerning the 
fencing-in of dangerous machinery, the ventilation of work- 
rooms, etc., were proposed, and a bill was introduced in 
Parliament to appoint factory inspectors to enforce the fac- 
tory legislation against the same miserable opposition, — 
again a triumph of justice which has proved very good. 2 
So it has continued through the entire list of reforms in 
Great Britain ; and this is the judgment of one after the 
lapse of some time since the introduction of most of them, 
and at a sufficient distance to view English history with 
judicial impartiality : " On the one side stood the laborers, 
led by a few radical manufacturers and philanthropic Tories ; 
on the other, the great mass of manufacturers and liberal 
doctrinaires, especially the so-called Manchester School. On 

1 This was seriously maintained by the elder Peel, early in this cen- 
tury. 

2 Even Carl Marx, who reluctantly acknowledged any possibility of 
effectual reform during the continuance of our present industrial sys- 
tem, was forced to speak of " the physical and moral regeneration " of 
the laboring classes in England. 



THE REMEDIES. 317 

the side of the laborers in this struggle, marvellous display 
of heroism and joy in silent sacrifice, only brought into more 
vivid light by the occasional outbreak of wild despair on the 
part of a few \ on the side of the mass of manufacturers, 
the expenditure of all means at their command to conceal 
the truth and to silence the most imperative demands of 
humanity ; on the side of the Manchester School, arguments 
against state intervention drawn from Adam Smith, and 
intended for entirely different circumstances, and coupled 
with those gloomy prophecies for the economic future of 
England in case of the passage and execution of factory 
laws. Step by step the manufacturers defended English 
industry against the legal regulation demanded by the labor- 
ers ; step by step, and for each separate branch of produc- 
tion were the laborers compelled to secure the protection of 
their wives and children against conscienceless greed." x 

A specific vice of our time, and one which political econo- 
mists of all schools condemn, is extravagance and luxury. 2 

1 Brentano. 

2 That waste impoverishes, is a truth which, simple as it is, needs to 
be impressed upon all social classes. A lady will spend $500 for 
a dress, and excuse her extravagance on the plea, that it furnishes 
work to the poor. She overlooks the obvious fact that the same sum 
spent in clothing the aged and infirm would furnish an equal amount 
of employment. A report of doubtful origin tells us that Mr. Powderly 
breaks his ginger-ale bottles in order to furnish labor to glass- workers. 
If this be true, he should reflect that he could at least save the bottles 
and use the money received for them in the purchase of glassware. 

One of the fundamental propositions concerning capital, as stated 
by John Stuart Mill, is that, though saved, it is consumed. This is the 
regular course in a normal condition of things in modern industrial life, 
and shows how misleading are declamations of some recent social- 
ists against saving, which, in their opinion, diminishes employment for 
labor. Another example will render this still clearer. Of two working- 
men, one saves all that he can during a course of years, and deposits 



313 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

It is wastj of economic powers, injuring those who indulge 
in it, and exciting envy and bitterness in the minds of those 
who are excluded. 1 The New York Volkszeitung, April 7, 
1883, a socialistic journal, printed not very long ago a bitter 
description of a sinfully extravagant ball given by a wealthy 
New Yorker. It was significantly entitled " Mene, Tekel, 
Upharsin. Belshazzar in his glory." 2 

it with a building association; the other spends his surplus earnings in 
fleeting pleasures. At the expiration of the period, during which both 
have given the same employment to laboi", the one has a house of his 
own, the other, nothing; and the former is more likely than the latter 
to raise the standard of life among the laboring classes. I am well 
aware of the limitations to the utility of saving, and also of the excep- 
tions to the general rule, that it is useful to a greater or less extent. 
I do not by any means consider the miser as a desirable member of the 
community. Yet I think this principle, in which all economists agree, 
shows the advantages which might be expected to accrue from instruc- 
tion in the elements of political economy in all public schools. A 
general comprehension of the most elementary economic truths would 
often induce different action from that which we commonly see. If 
people could but grasp the full import of this one principle, that waste 
impoverishes, it would prove of incalculable benefit, and foreigners 
might soon cease to wonder at the wastefulness of American life. 
There are, indeed, few among us who make the most of what we have. 
Many who live in worry and discomfort have a sufficient income to 
satisfy all rational wants, were it well expended. 

1 For a just estimate of luxury, considered from the standpoint of 
the economist and the Christian, see an admirable article by Emile de 
Laveleye in The Popular Science Monthly for March, 1 881. 

2 " The great luxury that is displayed by certain people here acts 
like a thorn in the flesh of the workingmen and others, and forces 
them to consider these questions." — Charles Lenz, before the U. S. Sen* 
ate Committee on Education and Labor. 

" Luxury has its decent limits, and we in this land are in danger in 
many directions of overstepping those limits." — Bishop Henry C. 
Potter, in his admirable letter of May 15, 1886, to the clergy of the 
Diocese of New York. 



THE REMEDIES. 319 

The social injury of vice is seen in the reproaches made 
against existing society by the Anarchists. A sad condition 
of family life is ridiculed and brought forward as proof of 
the hopeless rottenness of capitalistic society. In the long 
run, virtue is rewarded in states and in individuals, and that 
social body is doomed which is essentially immoral. 

The single individual cannot do all that is required to 
bring to pass the golden age in the future for which we all 
hope and pray. A wonderful law has bound us all so to- 
gether that when one suffers others endure pain, when one 
sins the penalty is visited on the innocent as well as on the 
guilty. 1 When one looks the world over, one can feel little 
doubt that, women and children included, even the greater 
part of suffering is caused by acts for which no guilt 
attaches to him who suffers. It was intended that it 
should be so, for it was never meant that man should 
be completely happy while his fellows are in pain. Other- 
wise, the brotherhood of man were an unmeaning phrase. 
The solidarity of human interests is a terrible reality. 
Nevertheless, individuals have to do a great deal in their 
individual capacity to cure social evils, and first of all is 
that ethical correction of evil tendencies which in theologi- 
cal language is called regeneration. Every employer, every 
employee, and every discontented human being should first 
look within, and begin the work of reform in their own na- 
tures. The workingmen in particular should cultivate tem- 
perance, and continue the good work already begun. As the 

1 An example to the point is the case of the Chicago Anarchists, for 
which organized labor is in no way responsible. Have not, indeed, 
the trades-unions and other labor societies been at swords' points per- 
petually with these Anarchists? Yet innocent workingmen are made 
to suffer grievously, and their cause injured, on account of acts which 
they abhor. 



320 THE LABOR MOVEMENT, 

best of them see, they have no worse foe than liquor. Then, 
personal purity ought to be encouraged among them, and to 
this too little attention has been given. I am told by one 
who ought to know, that unchastity is to-day a more crying 
evil among them than intemperance. There can be no 
healthy family life without chastity, and without a healthy 
family life, there can be no sound social or even industrial 
life. All this involves a multitude of problems, and chief 
among them is the tenement-house question. Every effort 
to surround the working people with 7 wholesome home influ- 
ences must be encouraged. In a city like New York, the 
laborers as a rule have nothing which could be called a home. 
In the factories and workshops, young people are subjected 
to bad influences to a needless extent. Girls are often 
obliged to submit to insults, to resent which involves dismis- 
sal and loss of livelihood for self, often also for young 
brothers and sisters or a widowed mother. Frequently, they 
are started on the downward track by boss or employer, who 
shows them favors in their work, for which they pay with 
their virtue. When I made a tour of personal inspection of 
industrial centres in 1885, preparatory to the preparation of 
this book, I spent a few days in a city of less than thirty 
thousand inhabitants in good old New England, where I was 
told that as many as two hundred couples live together 
outside the bonds of wedlock. It was something so com- 
mon that it did not involve a loss of caste in the laboring 
population. 

Experience must bring the fact more and more home to 
every thinking person that one indispensable condition of per- 
manent improvement in the lot of laborers is their moral ele- 
vation. The first conditions of success in their various efforts 
are mutual confidence, incorruptible integrity, and unques- 
tioned fidelity in positions of trust. Without these qualities, 



THE REMEDIES. 321 

political action, co-operation, and organization can do but poor 
and imperfect work, while they will frequently fail altogether. 
Again and again have venality, faithlessness, corruption, 
defeated the efforts of the toiling masses. Christian ethics 
— by all acknowledged to be the most perfect system of 
ethics, regardless of any divine origin — contain the princi- 
ples which should animate the entire labor movement. But 
how are men to learn these ? The masses can acquire such 
an acquaintance with the data of ethics as to render them a 
living reality only through some one who is a personal em- 
bodiment of them. Abstract ethics have not and never will 
become a mighty vital power in this world. It is the concrete 
which moves men. Now, I know only one perfect concrete 
embodiment of Christian ethics, and that is their Founder. 
He it is who must become the personal Saviour of this labor 
movement, if it is ever to accomplish its legitimate end. 1 

Manufacturers should cultivate the true humility of great 
souls, and adopt a more conciliatory attitude towards their 
laborers, encouraging them in the settlement of difficulties 
by arbitration, and receiving the committees and agents of 
their employees just as they would those of any other com- 
pany of men with whom they have dealings. They should 
recognize the same rights in their workmen to combine for 
mutual advancement which they claim for themselves. If 
they are wealthy, they ought not to presume upon it, or 
expect servility from their employees. Like other rich men, 
they should take to heart the golden words of Bishop Potter : 
" I do not know why poverty should cringe to wealth, which is 
as often as otherwise an accidental distinction, and quite as 
often a condition unadorned by any especial moral or intel- 
lectual excellence. . . . No arrogance is more insufferable or 

1 All this is said entirely apart from my views as a church member. 
I come to it by an independent route as a social scientist. 



322 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

unwarrantable than that of mere wealth." It is, further, the 
duty of manufacturers and of all employers to assist their 
workingmen in every laudable endeavor to resist conspir- 
acies on the part of their business rivals for the oppres- 
sion of the employed. They should be ready to speak 
out in public, and expose and denounce wrong, —just as 
many of them will do at their own tables, for example. 
Even good men, who wish themselves to do right, often 
take such an attitude in public, whenever they fancy vested 
interests in danger, that one gets-ihe impression of a will- 
ingness to join hands with the very devil, if he will only 
assure them the safety of their money-bags. Folly ! It 
is this timidity on their part which has wrought half the 
trouble ; for the really bad employers, who for gold would 
worship Satan, and send all their employees to hell, are few. 
But there are such in the United States, and upon their 
heads rests the blood of unnumbered thousands. People of 
all classes should combine to suppress the comparatively few 
on both sides of the social struggle who cause that mischief 
which endangers the safety of our republic. 1 Employers 
ought to have the confidence and friendship of those in 
their employ. Many of them have it, and year after year 
sustain the pleasantest relations with those about them. 
With tact and perseverance, the good will of employees, even 
of the worst class, can be won, as was demonstrated by the 
experience of Robert Owen, whose autobiography ought to 
be read by every manufacturer in the country. 

It should be remembered that every employer and indeed 
every man of wealth and position on the side of the 
workingman is a conservative element in society. This 
proved true, even of so extreme and radical a man as Robert 

1 I fear employers are a little less ready to cast unworthy men out 
of their combinations than the employees. 



THE REMEDIES. 323 

Owen, who incurred the hostility of his fellow-manufactur- 
ers, and yet on the whole strengthened the foundations on 
which they were constructing their fortunes. England is 
strong and free because it contains men like Mr. Forster, 
Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Samuel Morley, Mr. Hughes, Mr. 
Brassey. When Mr. Cross, a conservative minister of the 
Interior, Lgalized trades-unions and codified the factory leg- 
islation, he was building wisely for the future ; and when, as 
always happens in these days in England, in the case of 
proposed legislation for workingmen, members of the ruling 
class, like a great land-owner or large manufacturer, rise in 
Parliament to plead the cause of their subordinates, they are 
rendering a service to every employer of labor in Great 
Britain. To a greater extent than elsewhere do the govern- 
ing social elements in England sympathize with the labor 
movement and concern themselves with great social prob- 
lems, and on this account class antagonism is less sharp 
than in other similarly situated countries, like France and 
Germany. If we would live to be as old as England, it is 
time to begin to imitate her example in this respect. 

Workingmen must remember that they too often give just 
cause for complaint to their employers by reason of careless- 
ness, wastefulness, poor workmanship, neglect of trusts com- 
mitted to them, bad faith, distrust, and downright insolence, 
which is as unbecoming in them as in their industrial 
captains. Workingmen ought to cultivate a more concili- 
atory tone in all their relations, both in the shop and field 
and in their various societies. The discords which too 
often divide them are the triumph of their enemies, but a 
shame to them and a mortification to their friends. The 
organization of labor, as this book has shown, is an indis- 
pensable condition of the improvement of the masses, and it 
must be extended and also pursued on a more elevated 



324 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

ethical plane, if it is to accomplish its legitimate ends. 
There must be displayed a greater willingness to yield per- 
sonal advantage to the common good, and a stronger bond 
of union than has heretofore existed must be sought in an 
intensified feeling of brotherhood which will beget self- 
sacrifice and mutual trust and confidence. 

In conclusion, there are then four chief agencies through 
which we must work for the amelioration of the laboring 
class, as well as of all classes of society. These are 
the labor organization, the school, the State, and the 
Church. 

One principal remedy against the evils of socialism, nihil- 
ism, and anarchism is a better education in political, social, 
and economic science. The dense ignorance on these 
questions, even among the better classes, is something 
astounding. People contend against an unknown enemy. 
There are very few colleges where any adequate instruction 
is given in the great social problems of the day. What is 
the result? Their graduates, instead of converting others 
from error, often yield to the foes of society, and when they 
do seek to instruct, their ignorance of social movements is 
so gross that they render themselves a laughing-stock to 
workingmen. Perhaps they write an editorial to show 
socialists that a division of property would not produce an 
equality which would last twenty-four hours ! A graduate of 
a well-known college in New England, a clergyman, wrote 
not long ago that in his day they had in political economy 
only what could be learned out of a couple of text-books, like 
Mill and Fawcett, eminently respectable authorities, but 
hardly containing all that is needed by the college graduate 
of our day. It is not surprising, then, that two or three of 
his class, and among them a professor in a theological 
school^ had become socialists. Education in political and 



THE REMEDIES. 325 

social sciences ought to be given, not only in colleges, but 
in every high school and academy in the land. 

How is social power, the force which resides in society, to 
be utilized? The answer is, largely through the State, 
legally organized society. The individual has his province, 
the State has its functions, which the individual either can- 
not accomplish at all, or cannot accomplish so well. 1 But an 
obstacle to the proper economic activity of the State has 
been found in the low view men have too frequently taken 
of its nature. Calling it an atomistic collection of units, 
some have even gone so far as to speak of taxation for the 
support of public schools as robbery of the propertied 
classes. Now it may rationally be maintained that, if there 

1 The most pressing need at present is the complete public control 
of all railways. The postal savings banks, such as are now doing a 
good work in England and several other European countries, are one 
of the most important institutions which the general government could 
give us as an aid in the work of the elevation of the masses. There is 
absolutely no valid objection to be urged against their introduction in 
this country, and no contrivance so simple could accomplish more. A 
better regulation of corporate enterprises is a still more important but 
a more difficult duty of the State. A classification of undertakings 
suitable for the sphere of the individual and of those suitable for some 
public authority is another pressing need of our times. The super- 
stitious adherence to laissez faire has prevented the proper activity of 
the State, and this in turn has reacted upon the sphere of private enter- 
prise and has discouraged individual initiative and industry. The 
reader would do well to consult upon this point a valuable pamphlet by 
Professor Henry C. Adams, entitled "Principles that should control 
the Interference of the States in Industries," published by the Constitu- 
tion Club of the city of New York. Some valuable remarks on the 
proper industrial functions of the State may be found in the " Relation 
of the Modern Municipality to the Gas Supply," by Dr. E. J. James, 
published in Baltimore by the American Economic Association. A 
recent pamphlet published by Science in New York, 47 Lafayette 
Place, on the fundamental principles of economics may also be read 
j/ith profit. It is entitled ft Science Economic Discussion." 



320 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

is anything divine on this earth, it is the State, the product 
of the same God-given instincts which led to the establish- 
ment of the Church and the Family. It was once held that 
kings ruled by right divine, and in any widely accepted 
belief, though it be afterwards discredited, there is generally 
found a kernel of truth. In this case it was the divine 
right of the State. Socrates, who held the laws of the State 
sacred and inviolable, even when they condemned him to 
death, had a correcter view of its nature than our modern 
individualists. The Christian otfght not to view civil 
authority in any other light than a delegated responsibility 
from the Almighty. When men come to look upon their 
duty to the State as something as holy to their duty to the 
church, regarding the State as one of God's chief agencies 
for good, it will be easy for government to perform all its 
functions. Questions of civil service, as ordinarily pre- 
sented, do not go deep enough. A higher conception of the 
State is required. 

One crying need of the times is equality in the adminis- 
tration of the law. There is a good deal of talk about legal 
equality and — with a few exceptions like the old conspiracy 
laws — the laws themselves read so as to bear equally on all, 
but when it comes to the execution it is quite a different 
thing. There is one administration for the poor, another for 
the rich, and still another, widely different, for vast corpora- 
tions. It is idle to deny this. Everybody knows it, and the 
laborers resent it bitterly. 1 

One thing which should never be attempted is legal 

1 Inequality in the administration of law — and administration has 
been said to be even more important than constitutions — is both pos- 
itive and negative. The general laws are enforced more severely 
against the poor; and the laws in favor of the workingmen are — one 
tnay almost say, as a rule — not enforced at all. 



THE REMEDIES. 327 

repression of the labor movement. If the history of social 
movements in modern times teaches us anything at all, it 
is the folly of this. It simply drives the activities out of 
sight. It suppresses the symptoms, and aggravates the dis- 
ease tenfold. When combinations in England were declared 
not amenable to the law *of conspiracy, outrages soon 
began to diminish, and they continued to decrease pari 
passu with the recognition and support which trades-unions 
received from public opinion and the established authorities 
of the land. Withdraw the respect and esteem of the com- 
munity and you take away one of the strongest supports of 
character. The law of 1879 in Illinois which forbade unau- 
thorized companies of armed men, was — it may as well be 
acknowledged frankly — directed against workingmen. It 
was class legislation. Has it done any good ? It has not 
suppressed the Lehr- und Wehrverein 1 of Chicago, and no 
one knows how many more may be drilling in secret, though 
the fact that it has produced bitterness and intensified dis- 
content is undeniable. It is a bad law and a bad precedent. 
Our police system needs reforming. What is wanted is 
some kind of a control which shall prevent the continual 
clubbing of poor people without cause. Some kind of an 
administrative court might answer the purpose, and it would 
render the police not less but more efficient. It is a bad sign 
and shows something wrong when the great mass of honest 
workingmen are bitterly hostile to the police ; but apart from 
that, there are sufficient evidences of the frequent brutality of 

1 An armed company of Anarchists. It is reported that there are several 
secret companies of Anarchists in the United States, chiefly in Chicago, 
and it is well known that they have for several years been distributing 
arms and encouraging workingmen to buy them in all parts of the 
country, with the avowed purpose of the destruction of existing institu* 
tions. 



328 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

policemen, and in this country they are beginning to assume 
a tone which would better become the Czar of Russia than 
humble guardians of the peace. Certainly the police presi- 
dent of Berlin would not venture to assume the tone of 
some petty New York police officials. People should re- 
member, if they do not desire a police despotism in this 
country, that " eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and 
that it is precisely at such times as these in which we now 
live that the rights of free men are lost. Let no one mis- 
understand this. The office of a policeman is an honorable 
one and should be respected ; and there are many men both 
brave and good in every police force who deserve only 
praise. These are doubtless in the majority, but there are 
too many, thoroughly depraved and corrupted, who are only 
too glad to club workingmen and workingwomen to divert 
attention from their other misdeeds. Who has not heard of 
the bribed police of New York? Who does not know that 
men on $5,000 a year contrive to spend $25,000 annually? 
Who does not know that police captains are in collusion with 
houses of infamy and other illegal resorts, and accept " hush " 
money? Does it stand to reason to suppose that these dis- 
reputable characters are always in the right in their contro- 
versies with workingmen ? It is needless to argue the mat- 
ter. Every one, who will, may gain access to the facts of 
the case. 

But even when they are not bad men, the peculiar temp- 
tation of those engaged in such offices should be borne in 
mind. It is the same as that of the soldier, which is well 
described by Maurice, in these words : " There is a brutal 
appetite for slaughter, which is in the nature of every soldier 
because of every man, which war would probably call forth 
in each of us." l 

i" Social Morality." 



THE REMEDIES. 329 

Clubbing may be substituted for " slaughter " and police 
service for " war " in the above. Let us by all means have 
the very best and most efficient police force in every city, 
but place it under proper administrative control, and confine 
it within its own proper sphere. 

Public authorities — and let us have a force sufficient to do 
this in every emergency — should protect property and per- 
son. The outrages of private bands of hirelings have con- 
tinued too long. If property owners may employ a private 
army to protect their things, surely workmen may employ 
armed forces to protect their lives ; and we may as well give 
up government and return to the barbarism of anarchy. The 
Ohio law, which forbids the employment of deputy-sheriffs 
not resident in the county, may be commended as worthy of 
imitation. 

Above all things, let not government appear to the work- 
ingmen of the country as something merely harsh and re- 
pressive, for then its overthrow is merely a question of time. 
The beneficent nature of the State should be brought out 
strongly. 1 

Chief attention should be directed to the young, and with 
a good will and energetic action they can be so influenced 
as to change the character of the population materially in 
one generation. 2 They should, when necessary, be removed 
from vicious surroundings, and universal and compulsory 

1 Again I must quote the admirable words of Bishop Potter's " Pas- 
toral Letter " : " We may cover the pages of our statute books with 
laws regulating strikes and inflicting severest penalties on those who 
organize resistance to the individual liberty, whether of employer or 
workman; we may drill regiments and perfect our police : the safety and 
welfare of a state are not in these things, they are in the contentment 
and loyalty of its people, and they come by a different road." 

2 There are some good remarks on this subject in an article by David 
Dudley Field, in the Forum, Vol. I. 



330 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

education ought to reach every child in the land Schools 
may be improved by the introduction of instruction in morals 
and manners. Manual training for boys, sewing and cooking 
for girls, gymnastic exercises in suitable structures for both 
are all desirable, and would yield a large return for every 
dollar invested. Play-grounds for children might well be 
provided by every municipality, and if the cost should be 
large in great cities, it would be amply repaid in the vigor 
and health of their bodies. Public baths come under this 
general head ; and more should be^done for rational amuse- 
ment in order that the masses may receive the culture of 
wholesome recreation. 1 

1 The Church may also well do something in this direction, as was 
suggested to me by the late Rev. Dr. Leeds of Grace Church, Balti- 
more, whose letter is subjoined. 

" Grace Church Rectory, Baltimore, March 9, 1885. 
" Dear Mr. Ely : — 

"I thank you for sending me the paper containing your letter 
on the great social problem, your solution of which I fully agree 
with. There is a fault in the Church in not elevating as she ought 
— and as she has it in her power to do — the so-called laboring 
classes, and in promoting among all ranks in life a feeling of brother- 
hood. 

" The fault, however, is less in the Church, as suck, than in the pro- 
miscuous assemblies that gather within her walls; some of whom make 
the poor workmen uncomfortable by coldness and distance, while 
among others the workingman makes himself uncomfortable by the 
thought of contrasted appearance and inequality of position. ... It 
is not through worship alone that we shall reach them; but even more, 
I believe, by the provision of places of innocent pastime, and social in- 
tercourse among themselves, free from the dangers of alluring saloons, 
and yet antidotes to the gloom of unattractive homes in crowded lanes 
and alleys. Out of them they will pass under the Church's encourage- 
ment into her places of prayer of their own choice and motion. 

" Believe me in the fellowship of a common interest, 
"Sincerely yours, 

"George Leeds." 



THE REMEDIES. 331 

The Church must claim her full place as a social power, 
existing independently of the State. It is said that the 
Church is the representative of Christ, whose kingdom was 
not of this earth. True, but for us the higher life has its 
basis in the lower life, and that Christianity is certainly de- 
fective which is not a living force in matters of temporal 
concern. It may be that the talents intrusted to us here 
are small compared to the opportunities of a future state ; 
but the attainment of the higher responsibilities depends 
upon the administration of our earthly stewardship. Now, it 
seems to the writer that the Church neglects the enforce- 
ment of our duties with respect to temporal concerns. 

The entire duty of man is summed up by Christ in two 
commandments, which inculcate love to God and love to 
one's neighbor, and the one is said to be like unto the 
other. Now our theological seminaries have learned pro- 
fessors to teach their students, the future clergy, how to 
obey the first, and the various branches of learning taught 
are called theology \ but we find in them no one to teach 
us how to fulfil the second commandment. That is the func- 
tion of social science, but too many think glittering gener- 
alities are sufficient. This is a serious error, for it is by no 
means always an easy thing to show our love to our fellow- 
man in our deeds. We often hurt him when we would help 
him. 

It is with satisfaction one turns from the study of social 
problems to the teachings of Christ, which seem, from a 
purely scientific standpoint, to contain just what is needed. 
On entering our churches, the painful scene of discord be- 
tween what one sees and hears and what Christ taught, is by 
no means easy to describe. It is too frequently difficult to 
believe that the fashionable people about one are followers 
of the humble Nazarene, who found it so hard for the 



332 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

wealthy to enter the kingdom of heaven, and bid the rich 
young man sell all that he had and give to the poor. A 
great deal is said in criticism of the communism of the 
early Christians, and it is doubtless true that it proved no 
brilliant success, 1 but it would be well to dwell more at 
length on the spirit which that early communism presup- 
posed. A group of men and women, who sell their all and 
form one fund that they may live in common as brothers 
and sisters, without those social distinctions so dear to us 
all, must have been actuated by sincere convictions and un- 
feigned love. This is what men did who were near Christ 
and upon whom there had been a wonderful outpouring of 
God's Spirit. It may not be necessary for men to do that 
now, though it is not certain that many a man may not be 
called upon to part with wealth for the sake of Christian 
progress ; but it is necessary that Christians manifest a will- 
ingness to do this. 

In the harmonious action of State, Church, and individual, 
moving in the light of true science, will be found an escape 
from present and future social dangers. Herein is pointed 
out the path of safe progress ; other there is none. 

1 Nevertheless, I know of no proof whatever for the common asser- 
tion that the poverty of the believers at Jerusalem was in any way con- 
nected with the experiment in communism. 



APPENDIX I. 



I. Platform of Principles of the National Labor 
Union. 

II. Pledge and Preamble of the Journeymen Brick- 
layers' Association of Philadelphia. 

III. Declaration of Principles and Objects of the 

Cigar Makers* Progressive Union of America. 

IV. Extracts from the Constitution of the National 

Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel 
Workers of the United States. 
V. Manifesto of the International Working Peoples' 
Association. 

VI. Letter to Tramps, reprinted from the "Alarm " of 

Chicago. 

VII. Platform and Present Demands of the Socialistic 

Labor Party. 
VIII. Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1886, by an 
American Socialist. 



I. 

PLATFORM OF PRINCIPLES OF THE NATIONAL 
LABOR UNION. 

Adopted Friday, September 25, 1868. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all people are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
tain inalienable rights ; that among them are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights, govern- 



334 APPENDIX. 

ments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from 
the consent of the governed. 

That there are but two pure forms of government — the Auto- 
cratic and the Democratic ; under the former, the will of the in- 
dividual sovereign is the supreme law, under the latter, the sov 
ereignty is vested in the whole people, all other forms being a 
modification of the one or the other of these principles, and that 
ultimately one or the other of these forms must prevail through- 
out all civilized nations, and it is now for the American people 
to determine which of these principles shall triumph. That 
the design of the founders of the republic, was to institute 
a government upon the principle of absolute inherent sovereignty 
of the people, and that would give to each citizen the largest 
political and religious liberty compatible with the good order of 
society, and secure to each the right to enjoy the fruits of his 
labor and talents; that when laws are enacted destructive of 
these ends, they are without moral binding force, and it is the 
right and duty of the people to alter, amend, or abolish them, 
and institute such others, founding them upon the principles of 
equality, as to them may seem most likely to effect their pros- 
perity and happiness. Prudence will indeed dictate that impor- 
tant laws long established, should not be changed for light and 
transient causes ; and experience has shown that the American 
people are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than 
to change the forms and laws to which they have been accus- 
tomed. But when a long train of legislative abuses, pursuing 
invariably the same object, evinces a design to subvert the spirit 
of freedom and equality upon which our institutions are founded, 
and reduce them to a state of servitude, it is their right, it is 
their duty, to abolish such laws and provide new guards for their 
future security. Such has been the patient suffering of the 
wealth-producing classes of the United States, and such is the 
necessity which constrains them to put forth an organized and 
united effort for maintaining their natural rights, which are im- 
perilled by the insidious schemes and unwarranted aggression of 
unscrupulous bankers and usurpers, by means of unwise and cor- 
rupt legislation. 



APPENDIX, 335 

We further hold that all property or wealth is the product of 
physical or intellectual labor employed in productive industry, and 
in the distribution of the productions of labor. That laborers 
ought of right, and would, under a just monetary system, receive 
or retain the larger proportion of their productions ; that the 
wrongs, oppressions, and destitution which laborers are suffering 
in most departments of legitimate enterprise and useful occupa- 
tion, do not result from insufficiency of production, but from the 
unfair distribution of the products of labor between non-produc- 
ing capital and labor. 

That money is the medium of distribution to non-producing 
capital and producing labor, the rate of interest determining 
what proportion of the products of labor shall be awarded to 
capital for its use, and what to labor for its productions ; 
that the power to make money and regulate its value, is an 
essential attribute of sovereignty, the exercise of which is, by 
the Constitution of the United States, wisely and properly 
granted to Congress ; and it is the imperative duty of Congress 
to institute it upon such a wise and just basis that it shall be 
directly under the control of the sovereign people who produce 
the value it is designed to represent, measure and exchange, 
that it may be a correct and uniform standard of value, and 
distribute the products of labor equitably between capital and 
labor, according to the service of labor performed in their pro- 
duction. That the law enacting the so-called national banking 
system is a delegation by Congress of the sovereign power to 
make money, and regulate its power to a class of irresponsible 
banking associations, thereby giving to them the power to con- 
trol the value of all the property in the nation, and to fix the 
rewards of labor in every department of industry, and is inimical 
to the spirit of liberty, and subversive of the principles of justice 
upon which our Democratic Republican institutions are founded, 
and without warrant, in the Constitution ; justice, reason, and 
sound policy demand its immediate repeal, and the substitution 
of legal tender treasury notes, as the exclusive currency of the 
nation. 

That this money monopoly is the parent of all monopolies — 



336 APPENDIX. 

the very root and essence of slavery — railroads, warehouses, 
and all other monopolies, of whatever kind or nature, are the out- 
growth of and subservient to this power, and the means used by 
it to rob the enterprising, industrial, wealth-producing classes of 
the products of their talents and labor. 

That as government is instituted to protect life and secure the 
rights of property, each should share its just and proper propor- 
tion of the burdens and sacrifices necessary for its maintenance 
and perpetuity ; and that the exemption from taxation of bank 
capital and government bonds, bearing double and bankrupting 
rates of interest, is a species of unjust class legislation, opposed 
to the spirit of our institutions, and contrary to the principles of 
sound morality and enlightened reason. That our monetary, 
financial, and revenue laws are, in letter and spirit, opposed to 
the principles of freedom and equality upon which our Demo- 
cratic Republican institutions are founded. There is in all their 
provisions, manifestly a studied design to shield non-producing 
capital from its just proportion of the burdens necessary for the 
support of the government, imposing them mainly on the in- 
dustrial, wealth-producing classes, thereby condemning them to 
lives of unremunerated toil, depriving them of the ordinary con- 
veniences and comforts of life, of the time and means necessary 
for social enjoyment, intellectual culture, and moral improve- 
ment, and ultimately reducing them to a state of practical servi- 
tude. We further hold that while these unrighteous laws of 
distribution remain in force, laborers cannot, by any system of 
combination or co-operation, secure their natural rights. That 
the first and most important step towards the establishment of 
the rights of labor, is the institution of a system of true co- 
operation between non-producing capital and labor. That to 
effect this most desirable object, money — the medium of distri- 
bution to capital and labor — must be instituted upon such a 
wise and just principle that, instead of being a power to centralize 
the wealth in the hands of a few bankers, usurers, middlemen, 
and non-producers generally, it shall be a power that will dis- 
tribute products to producers, in accordance with the labor or 
service performed in their production — the servant and not the 



APPENDIX. 337 

master of labor. This done, the natural rights of labor will be 
secured, and co-operation in production, and in the distribution 
of products, will follow as a natural consequence. The weight 
will be lifted from the back of the laborer, and the wealth- 
producing classes will have the time and the means necessary for 
social enjoyment, intellectual culture, and moral improvement, 
and the non-producing classes compelled to earn a living by 
honest industry. We hold that this can be effected by the issue 
of treasury notes made a legal tender in the payment of all debts, 
public and private, and convertible, at the option of the holder, 
into government bonds, bearing a just rate of interest, sufficiently 
below the rate of increase in the national wealth, by natural pro- 
duction, as to make an equitable distribution of the products of 
labor between non-producing capital and labor, reserving to Con- 
gress the right to alter the same when, in their judgment, the 
public interest would be promoted thereby ; giving the govern- 
ment creditor the right to take the lawful money or the interest- 
bearing bonds at his election, with the privilege to the holder to 
re-convert the bonds into money, or the money into bonds, at 
pleasure. 

We hold this to be the true American or people's monetary 
system, adopted to the genius of our Democratic Republican 
institutions, in harmony with the letter and spirit of our Consti- 
tution, and suited to the wants of the government aud business 
interests of the nation ; that it would furnish a medium of ex- 
change, having equal power, a uniform value, and fitted for the 
performance of all the functions of money, co-extensive with the 
jurisdiction of government. That with a just rate per cent 
interest on the government bonds, it would effect the equitable 
distribution of the products of labor between non-producing 
capital and labor, giving to laborers a fair compensation for their 
products, and to capital a just reward for its use ; remove the 
necessity for excessive toil, and afford the industrial classes the 
time and means necessary for social and intellectual culture. 
With the rate of interest at three per cent on the government 
bonds, the national debt would be liquidated within less than 
thirty years, without the imposition or collection of a farthing of 



338 APPENDIX. 

taxes for that purpose. Thus it would dispense with the hungry 
horde of assessors, tax gatherers, and government spies, that are 
harassing the industrial classes, and despoiling them of their 
subsistence. 

We further hold that it is essential to the happiness and pros- 
perity of the people, and the stability of our Democratic Repub- 
lican institutions, that the public domain be distributed as 
widely as possible among the people, — a land monopoly being 
equally as oppressive to the people, and dangerous to our institu- 
tions, as the present money monopoly. To prevent this, the 
public lands should be given in reasonable quantities and to 
none but actual occupants. 

We further hold that intelligence and virtue in the sovereignty 
are necessary to a wise administration of justice, and that as our 
institutions are founded upon the theory of sovereignty in the 
people, in order to their preservation and perpetuity, it is the 
imperative duty of Congress to make such wise and just regula- 
tions as shall afford all the means of acquiring the knowledge 
requisite to the intelligent exercise of the privileges and duties 
pertaining to sovereignty, and that Congress should ordain that 
eight hours' labor, between the rising and setting of the sun, 
should constitute a day's work in all government works and 
places where the national government has exclusive jurisdiction ; 
and that it is equally imperative on the several States to make 
like provision by legal enactment. Be it therefore unanimously 

Resolved, That our first duty is now to provide, as speedily as 
possible, a system of general organization in accordance with 
the principles herein more specifically set forth, and that each 
branch of industry shall be left to adopt its own particular form 
of organization, subject only to such restraint as may be neces- 
sary to place each organization within line, so as to act in har- 
mony in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the whole, as 
well as each of the parts ; and that it is the imperative duty of 
each individual, in each and every branch of industry, to aid in 
the formation of such labor organizations in their respective 
branches, and to connect themselves therewith. 



APPENDIX. 339 

CO-OPERATIVE. 

Resolved, That in co-operation based upon just financial and 
revenue laws, we recognize a sure and lasting remedy for the 
abuse of the present industrial system, and that, until the laws 
of the nation can be remodelled so as to recognize the rights of 
men instead of classes, the system of co-operation carefully 
guarded will do much to lessen the evils of our present system. 
We therefore hail with delight the organization of co-operative 
stores and workshops, and would urge their formation in every 
section of the country, and in every branch of business. 

woman's labor. 

Resolved, That with the equal application of the fundamental 
principles of our Republican Democratic government, and a 
sound monetary system, there could be no antagonism between 
the interests of the workingmen and workingwomen of this coun- 
try, nor between any of the branches of productive industry, — 
the direct operation of each, when not prevented by unjust mone- 
tary laws, being to benefit all the others by the production and 
distribution of the comforts and necessaries of life ; and that 
the adoption, by the national government, of the financial policy 
set forth in this platform, will put an end to the oppression of 
workingwomen, and is the only means of securing to them as 
well as to the workingmen the just reward of their labor. 

Resolved, That we pledge our individual and undivided sup- 
port to the sewing-women and daughters of toil in this land, 
and would solicit their hearty co-operation, knowing, as we do, 
that no class of industry is so much in need of having their con- 
dition ameliorated as the factory operatives, sewing-women, etc., 
of this country. 

CONVICT-LABOR. 

Resolved, That we demand the abolishment of the system of 
convict-labor in our prisons and penitentiaries, and that the labor 
performed by convicts shall be that which will least conflict with 
honest industry outside of the prisons, and that the wares man- 
ufactured by the convict shall not be put upon the market at less 
than the current: market>r&tes. 



340 APPENDIX. 

IMPROVED DWELLINGS FOR LABORERS. 

Resolved^ That we would urgently call the attention of the in- 
dustrial classes to the subject of tenement houses and improved 
dwellings, believing it to be essential to the welfare of the whole 
community that a reform should be effected in this respect, as 
the experience of the past has proved that vice, pauperism, and 
crime are the invariable attendants of the over-crowded and illy 
ventilated dwellings of the poor, and urge upon the capitalists of 
the country attention to the blessings to be derived from invest- 
ing their means in the erection of such dwellings. 

INTELLECTUAL IMPROVEMENT. 

Resolved, That the formation of mechanics' institutes, lyceums, 
and reading-rooms, and the erection of buildings for that pur- 
pose, are recommended to workingmen in all cities and towns, 
as a means of advancing their social and intellectual improve- 
ment. 

REMEDY FOR INSUFFICIENT WORK. 

Resolved, That this Labor Congress would most respectfully 
recommend to the workingmen of the country, that in case they 
are pressed for want of employment, they proceed to become 
actual settlers ; believing that if the industry of the country can 
be coupled with its natural advantages, it will result both in 
individual relief and national advantages. 

Resolved^ That where a workingman is found capable and 
available for office, the preference should invariably be given to 
such person. 

Six Additions to the Platform adopted by the 
National Labor Unions since 1868. 

Resolved^ That the public lands of the United States belong to 
the people, and should not be sold to individuals, nor granted to 
corporations ; but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit 
of the people, and should be granted, free of cost, to landless 
settlers only, in amounts not exceeding 160 acres of land. 

Resolved, That the treaty-making power of the government 
has no authority in the Constitution to " dispose of" the public 



APPENDIX. 341 

lands without the joint sanction of the Senate and House of 
Representatives. 

Resolved, That as labor is the foundation and cause of national 
prosperity, it is both the duty and interest of the government to 
foster and protect it. Its importance, therefore, demands the 
creation of an executive department of the government at Wash- 
ington, to be denominated the Department of Labor, which 
shall aid in protecting it above all other interests. 

Resolved, That the protection of life, liberty, and property are 
the three cardinal principles of government, and the first two 
more sacred than the latter; therefore, money necessary for 
prosecuting wars should, as it is required, be assessed and col- 
lected from the wealth of the country and not be entailed as a 
burden on posterity. 

Resolved, That inasmuch as both the present political parties 
are dominated by the non-producing classes, who depend on 
public plunder for subsistence and wealth, and have no sym- 
pathy with the working millions beyond the use they can make 
of them for their own political and pecuniary aggrandizement ; 
therefore, the highest interest of our colored fellow-citizens is 
with the workingmen, who, like themselves, are slaves of capital 
and politicians, and strike for liberty. 

Resolved, That women are entitled to equal pay for equal ser- 
vices with men ; that the practice of working women and chil- 
dren ten to fifteen hours a day at starvation prices is brutal in 
the extreme, and subversive to the health, intelligence, and 
morality of the nation, and demands the interposition of law. 



II. 

JOURNEYMEN BRICKLAYERS' PROTECTIVE ASSO- 
CIATION OF PHILADELPHIA. 

Pledge. 

I hereby solemnly and sincerely pledge my honor as a man, 
that I will not reveal any private business or proceedings of this 



342 APPENDIX. 

Association, or any individual action of its members; that 1 
will, without equivocation or evasion, and to the best of my 
ability, so long as I remain a member thereof, abide by the 
Constitution and By-Laws, and the particular scale of prices of 
work adopted by it; that I will acquiesce in the will of the 
majority, and that I will at all times, by every honorable means 
within my power, procure employment for members of this 
Association; that I will, at all times and places, especially at 
work, endeavor to assist and comfort my fellow-workmen who 
are members of this Association. 

Preamble. 

Whereas, To elevate and maintain a proper position in our 
trade and calling, we have found it necessary to organize and 
adopt means by which we may assert our individual rights, there- 
fore be it 

Resolved, That the Journeymen Bricklayers' Protective Asso- 
ciation of Philadelphia, with a view to maintain a fair rate of 
wages, encourage members to advance themselves in their trade, 
to fraternize in a spirit of harmony, and use every means which 
may tend to the elevation of Bricklayers in the social scale of 
life, form themselves into a union for the accomplishment 
of these ends, do therefore enact and declare the following as 
their Constitution, By-Laws, and Rules of Order. 



III. 

CONSTITUTION OF THE CIGAR-MAKERS' PROGRES- 
SIVE UNION OF AMERICA. 1 

Declaration of Principles. 

The working people, though being the creators of all wealth, 
are in every sense of the word unfree, economically and politi 
cally. 

1 This is one of the socialistic unions. 



APPENDIX. 343 

The means of production, money, machinery and tools of all 
kinds, as well as the soil, are in the hands of a few — the capi- 
talistic class. 

The working classes, compelled by want, are selling their only 
means, their laboring power, to the capitalistic class for wages, 
regulated by supply and demand. 

The surplus of the values created by the laboring classes goes 
to the capitalistic class causing the growth of gigantic monopo- 
lies, the destruction of the middle class, and the pauperization 
of the working people in an ever-increasing ratio. The means of 
production in the hands of capitalists are a powerful means 
of subduing the class of workers. 

Every improvement in the means of production does away 
with a number of human hands, and annually the army of the 
unemployed is on the increase, thereby decreasing the demand 
for the means of life on the part of the laboring class. 

The misproportion of production and the demand for products 
is growing, and crises are the natural consequence. 

The capitalistic class, by its wealth, owns all legislation, its 
privileges are guaranteed by law. 

The laboring classes have — as experience shows — nothing to 
expect from present legislatures. Therefore, we consider it to 
be a necessity for the workers of our day to recognize and defend 
their common interests as a class. 

For that purpose they need Organization! 

Disunited, the workers are nothing ! United, they are an irre- 
sistible power! 

Organization and united action are the only means by which 
the laboring classes can gain any advantages for themselves. 

Organization and Unity bear, in themselves, the germ for a 
just form of society. 

Good and strong labor organizations are enabled to defend 
and preserve the interests of the working mass. 

Organization enables them to assist each other in case of 
strikes, death and disease. 

By Organization only, the workers, as a class, are able to gain 
legislative advantages. The battle-cry of the laboring class 



344 APPENDIX. 

must be: "Cut loose from the present political parties; Elect 
none but workingmen to the Legislature! " They know the suf- 
ferings of the people ; they know where to put in the lever to lift 
the burdens from their fellow-sufferers and to give them their 
economic and political rights. 

These organized economic and political struggles teach the 
workers to conduct their own case and to give them confidence 
in their own might. 

Self-confidence gives to the worker the power to do away with 
the present unjust mode of production, as well as with the social 
system of classes to put in their stead the co-operative mode of 
producing, with a just distribution of all 7 products, and political 
equality of all individuals. 

The confidence in one's own power destroys the belief in all 
authority wherever exerted. 

To do away with all unjust domination in state, society, etc., 
and to establish real sovereignty of the people is the aim of the 
modern labor movement. 

The laboring classes must be freed by the laboring classes them- 
selves. 

ARTICLE II. — Object. 

Sec. i. This Union aims at the furtherance of the material 
and intellectual welfare of all workers, male and female, em- 
ployed at the manufacture of cigars. 

Sec. 2. This Union proposes to carry out its aims by the fol- 
lowing means : — 

a) By gratuitously furnishing work ; 

b) By mutual pecuniary aid ; 

i) In case of strikes and lockouts, of sickness and death ; 

2) By lending money for travelling ; 

3) In case of legal difficulties consequent upon affairs con- 
cerning the Union ; 

i) Regarding intellectual advancement ; 

1) By issuing an organ defending the interests of the Union; 

2) By lectures and discussions upon topics of Political Econ- 
omy, Statistics, etc; 



APPENDIX. 345 

d') By agitating propositions for the introduction of laws for the 

protection of labor's interests. 
Sec. 3. Laws for the protection of labor's interests, as this 
Union understands them, are : 
a) Prohibition of industrial labor for boys under 14 and for 

girls under 16 years of age. 
£) Limiting the hours of labor to not more than eight per day, 

and enforcing such a law by the executive powers of the 

State. 

c) Prohibition of all night work. 

d) Abolition of the truck system. 

e) Prohibition of tenement-house cigar-manufacture. 

f) Prohibition of contract labor in prisons and reformatory 
institutions. 

g) State control of factories and workshops with reference to 
their sanitary condition, also laws for the protection of the 
life and limbs and the health of the workmen. 

k) Owners of factories to be made liable, unconditionally, for 

accidents caused by the lack of proper measures for the safety 

of their workers. 
i) Establishment of a Central Bureau of Statistics for labor and 

labor interests ; the Bureau to be controlled by the labor 

unions. 



IV. 

REVISED CONSTITUTION AND GENERAL LAWS OF 
THE NATIONAL AMALGAMATED ASSOCIATION 
OF IRON AND STEEL WORKERS OF THE 
UNITED STATES. 

Preamble. 

11 Labor has no protection — the weak are devoured by the 
strong. All wealth and all power centre in the hands of few, 
and the many are their victims and their bondsmen." 

So says an able writer in a treatise on association ; and in 



346 APPENDIX. 

studying the history of the past, the impartial thinker must be 
impressed with the truth of the above quotation. In all coun- 
tries and at all times capital has been used by those possessing 
it to monopolize particular branches of business, until the vast 
and various industrial pursuits of the world have been under the 
immediate control of a comparatively small portion of mankind. 
Although an unequal distribution of the world's wealth, it is per- 
haps necessary that it should be so. 

To attain to the highest degree of success, in any undertaking, 
it is necessary to have the most perfect and systematic arrange- 
ment possible : to acquire such a system it requires the manage- 
ment of a business to be placed as nearly as possible under the 
control of one mind ; thus concentration of wealth and business 
tact conduces to the most perfect working of the vast business 
machinery of the world. And there is, perhaps, no other organ- 
ization of society so well calculated to benefit the laborer and 
advance the moral and social condition of the mechanic of the 
country, if those possessed of wealth were all actuated by those 
pure and philanthropic principles so necessary to the happiness 
of all. But, alas ! for the poor of humanity, such is not the 
case. " Wealth is power," and practical experience teaches us 
that it is power too often used to depress and degrade the daily 
laborer. 

Year after year the capital of the country becomes more and 
more concentrated in the hands of the few ; and in proportion 
as the wealth of the country becomes centralized, its power in- 
creases, and the laboring classes are impoverished. It there- 
fore becomes us, as men who have to battle with the stern re- 
alities of life, to look this matter fair in the face. There is no 
dodging the question. Let every man give it a fair, full, and 
;andid consideration, and then act according to his honest con- 
victions. What position are we, the Iron and Steel Workers of 
America, to hold in Society? Are we to receive an equivalent 
for our labor sufficient to maintain us in comparative independ- 
ence and respectability, to procure the means with which to 
educate our children and qualify them to play their part in the 
world's drama? or must we be forced to bow the suppliant's knee 



APPENDIX. 347 

to wealth, and earn by unprofitable toil a life too void of solace 
to confirm the very chains that bind us to our doom ? 

"In union there is strength;" and in the formation of a 
National Amalgamated Association, embracing every iron and 
steel worker in the country, a union founded upon a basis broad 
as the land in which we live, lies our only hope. Single-handed 
we can accomplish nothing, but united there is no power of 
wrong we may not openly defy. 

Let the iron and steel workers of such places as have not 
already moved in this matter, organize as quickly as possible and 
connect themselves with the National Association. Do not be 
humbugged with the idea that this thing cannot succeed. We 
are not theorists ; this is no visionary plan, but one eminently 
practicable. Nor can injustice be done to any one ; no undue 
advantage can be taken of any of our employers. There is not, 
there cannot be any good reason why they should not pay us a 
fair price for our labor. If the profits of their business are not 
sufficient to remunerate them for their trouble of doing business, 
let the consumer make the balance. The stereotype argument 
of our employers, in every attempt to reduce wages, is that their 
large expenses and small profits will not warrant the present 
prices for labor ; therefore, those just able to live now must be 
content with less hereafter. 

In answer, we maintain the expenses are not unreasonable, 
and the profits are large, and the aggregate great. There is no 
good reason why we should not receive a fair equivalent for our 
labor. A small reduction seriously diminishes the already scanty 
means of the operative and puts a large sum in the employer's 
pocket, and yet some of the manufacturers would appear chari- 
table before the world. 

We ask, is it charitable, is it humane, is it honest, to take 
from the laborer, who is already fed, clothed, and lodged too 
poorly, a portion of his food and raiment, and deprive his family 
of the necessaries of life by the common resort — a reduction 
of his wages? It must not be so. 

To rescue our trades from the condition into which they have 
fallen, and raise ourselves to that condition in society to which 



348 APPENDIX. 

we, as mechanics, are justly entitled, and to place ourselves on a 
foundation sufficiently strong to secure us from further encroach- 
ments, and to elevate the moral, social, and intellectual condition 
of every iron and steel worker in the country, is the object of 
our National Association ; and to the consummation of so de- 
sirable an object, we, the delegates in convention assembled, do 
pledge ourselves to unceasing effort. 

ARTICLE I. — Name and Objects. 

Section i. This Association shall be known as the Na- 
tional Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel 
Workers of the United States/ consisting of Puddlers, 
Boilers, Heaters and their Helpers ; Roll Hands, except Drag- 
Outs on Muck Mills; Nailers, Spike Makers, Nail and Spike 
Feeders, Hammermen, Shinglers and Knobblers, Refiners, Roll 
Turners ; also Picklers, Annealers, Washmen, Assorters, and Tin 
Men in Tin Mills ; Hot and Cold Straighteners and their Help- 
ers ; Gaggers and Drillers working by the ton ; Chargers, Pull- 
Outs, Hot-Bed Men and Clippers in Rail Mills ; Wire Drawers, 
Tackers, Spring Makers, Spring Fitters, Axle Turners, Water 
Tenders, Rivet Men, Axle Makers, their Heaters and Helpers ; 
Heaters and Welders in Pipe Mills ; Gas Makers in Crucible 
Steel and Iron Works, after they have been working at the 
business one year; Shearmen in Bar, Plate, Sheet, and Nail 
Mills ; Engineers and Blacksmiths directly connected with Iron, 
Steel or Tin Works ; also Stockers, Chargers, Cupola Tenders, 
Speigel Melters, Runnermen, Vesselmen, Bottom Makers, Ladle- 
men, Pitmen, Cindermen, Stagemen, and Blowers working by. 
the ton, and Pipe Fitters connected with Bessemer Steel Works. 
Also Keepers and their Helpers, Bottom Fillers, Top Fillers, 
Engineers, Iron Men, Cindermen, and Water Tenders at Blast 
Furnaces directly connected with Bessemer Steel Mills. 

Sec. 2. The objects of this Association shall be the eleva- 
tion of the position of its members, the maintenance of the 
best interests of the Association, and to obtain by conciliation, 
or by other means that are fair and legal, a fair remuneration to 
the members for their labor ; and to afford mutual protection to 



APPENDIX. 3*9 

members against broken contracts, obnoxious rules, unlawful 
discharge, or other systems of injustice or oppression. 

ARTICLE II. — National Jurisdiction and General 

Office. 

Section i . This Association shall have jurisdiction over the 
United States and Canada, in which there are at present, or may 
be hereafter, Subordinate Lodges located ; and shall be the high- 
est authority of the Order in its jurisdiction, and without its 
sanction no lodge can exist. 

Sec. 2. The general office of the Association shall be 
located in the city of Pittsburg, Pa., and it shall be required 
that the President and the Secretary of the National Lodge reside 
in the city where the general office is located. 

ARTICLE III. — National Lodge Elective Officers and 
their Duties. 

Section i. The elective officers of the National Association 
shall be a President, who shall also be Organizer, a Secretary, 
a Vice-President for each district or division of a district, a 
Treasurer, and three Trustees, who shall hold their offices until 
their successors are elected or appointed. 

Sec. 2. The President shall be elected from among the dele- 
gates at Convention, or those who have been delegates at any 
previous Convention, or whoever held office in the National 
Association previous to the adoption of this Article. He shall 
instruct all new members in the workings of the Association, 
and superintend the workings of the order throughout the juris- 
diction. He shall sign all official documents whenever satisfied 
of their correctness and authenticity, and appoint Vice-Presi- 
dents or Trustees of the National Lodge where vacancies occur. 
He shall have power to visit any Sub-Lodge and inspect their 
proceedings, either personally or by deputy ; and require a com- 
pliance to the laws, rules, and usages of this Association, and if 
any Sub-Lodge shall refuse or neglect to place any of their books 
or documents, or any information in their possession, into the 
hands of the President, or his deputy, whenever required by 



350 APPENDIX. 

either of them for any information or investigation he may deem 
necessary, the President may fine or suspend the Sub-Lodge 
immediately, and report his action to the Secretary of the Na- 
tional Lodge, who, in turn, shall report the same to the Vice- 
President of the district in which the lodge is located, and to all 
Sub-Lodges in the Association as soon as possible. He shall 
submit to the Secretary at the end of each month, an itemized 
account of all moneys, travelling and incidental, expended by 
him in the interest of the Association, and at the end of his 
term of office he shall report his acts and doings, in which shall 
be embodied the reports of the Vice-Presidents, to the National 
Convention. He shall be required to 7 devote all his time to the 
interest of this Association, and for his services shall receive 
such sum as the National Convention shall determine. 

Sec. 3. The Secretary shall be elected from among the dele- 
gates at Convention, or those who have been delegates at any 
previous Convention, or who ever held office in the National 
Association previous to the adoption of this Article. He shall 
take charge of all books, papers, and effects of the general office. 
He shall furnish all elective officers with the necessary letter 
heads and stationery. He shall convene and act as Secretary of 
the National Convention, keep all documents, papers, accounts, 
letters received, and copies of all important letters sent by him 
on business of the Association in such a manner and place, and 
for such purposes as the National Convention shall direct. He 
shall collect and receive all moneys due the National Associa- 
tion, pay the same to the Treasurer, taking his receipt therefor. 
He shall also draw all warrants on the Treasurer and Trustees, 
Which shall be signed by the President. He shall prepare a 
quarterly report of the financial transactions connected with the 
National Association, and furnish each Sub-Lodge with a copy 
of the same. He shall also furnish each Sub-Lodge, in arrears, 
with a statement of their indebtedness on or before the fifteenth 
of June in each year. He shall register the names of members 
who have received strike or victimized benefits and the amount 
each member has received. He shall close all accounts of the 
National Association on the thirtieth day of June in each year, 



APPENDIX. 351 

and all moneys received or disbursed after said date shall not 
be reported in the general balance account at the next National 
Convention. He shall, after the adjournment of each National 
Convention, prepare a general account of the proceedings there- 
of as soon as possible, together with a general balance account 
of all moneys received and disbursed, a copy of which shall be 
furnished gratis to each Subordinate Lodge in good standing, 
and for his services shall receive such sum as the National Con- 
vention shall determine. 

Sec. 4. Upon the death, resignation, or removal of the Presi- 
dent of the National Lodge, the Vice-President of the First Divi- 
sion of the First District shall immediately assume the duties of 
the President and notify the different Vice-Presidents, who shall 
meet, and in conjunction with the National Lodge officers, shall 
elect a successor for the unexpired term. 

Sec. 5. Upon the death, resignation, or removal of the Sec- 
retary or the Treasurer of the National Lodge, the President 
thereof shall immediately take charge of all books, papers, and 
effects of the general office, and notify the different Vice-Presi- 
dents, who shall meet, and in conjunction with the National 
Lodge officers, shall elect a successor for the unexpired term. 

Sec. 6. It shall be the duty of the Vice-Presidents to act as 
executives of the several districts or divisions of districts in 
which they may reside, and render such other assistance to the 
President as he may require. They shall report their acts and 
doings for their term of office, to the President of the National 
lodge, not later than the first of July in each year. (See 
President's duties.) They shall appoint three deputies each to 
assist them in their duties, the same to report to their respective 
Vice-Presidents every three months. When either or all of the 
regular deputies cannot attend, then the Vice-President shall 
have power to appoint special deputies for that occasion. Vice- 
Presidents shall be delegates at large to the National Conven- 
tion. 

Sec. 7. The Treasurer shall receive and take charge of all 
moneys, property, and security of the National Association de- 
livered to him by the Secretary, and all moneys that accumulate 



552 APPENDIX. 

in his hands over and above the amount of his bond ($10,000), 
he shall deposit in bank, taking a certificate of deposit there- 
for, and all such certificates he shall turn over to the Trustees of 
the National Lodge. He shall pay, through the Secretary, all 
warrants regularly drawn on him, signed by the President and 
countersigned by the Secretary, as required by this Constitution, 
and none others. He shall submit to the National Convention 
a complete statement of all receipts and disbursements during 
his term of office. He shall be required to attend the Sessions 
of the National Association ; and at the expiration of his term 
of office, he shall deliver up to the successor all moneys, securi- 
ties, books, and papers of the National Association under his 
control. 

Sec. 8. It shall be the duty of the Board of Trustees to 
receive and hold the certificates of deposit turned over to them 
by the Treasurer of the National Lodge, as set forth in the 
duties of the Treasurer, and in no case shall the Trustees re- 
turn to the Treasurer any of said certificates, except on the order 
of the President, attested by the Secretary of the National 
Lodge. They shall also hold the required bonds of the Presi- 
dent, Secretary, and Treasurer, which shall be five thousand dol- 
lars ($5,000.00) each for the President and Secretary, and ten 
thousand dollars ($10,000.00) for the Treasurer. They shall 
also, in conjunction with the President, Secretary, and Treas- 
urer, audit all accounts of the National Lodge every three 
months, which settlement shall be final for each quarter. 

A copy of such settlement shall be sent to each Sub-Lodge by 
the Secretary of the National Lodge, in which shall appear the 
individual expenses of the National Lodge Officers, including 
the Deputies and members of the Executive and Conference 
Committees of the several districts, and those settlements shall 
be referred to the Committee on Auditing at each National Con- 
vention. For the faithful performance of their duties the Trus- 
tees shall give a bond of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) each, 
which shall be deposited with the President. 

Sec. 9. The Trustees and officers of the National Lodge 
shall also constitute an Advisory Board to the President of 



APPENDIX. 353 

the National Lodge, with whom he shall consult at his dis- 
cretion. 

Sec. io. The President of the National Association shall 
preside at all National Conventions. He shall preserve order 
and enforce the laws thereof. He shall have the casting vote 
when equally divided on any question, but shall not vote at 
other times, except at the election of officers pro tern. He shall 
make out and announce the following committees : — 

On report of the President and other officers, on Ways and 
Means, on Auditing, on Secret Work, on Grievance, on Claims, 
on Appeals, on Constitution and General Laws, on General 
Good of the Order. 

Sec. i i . The National Lodge Officers, Vice-Presidents, Depu- 
ties, Executive, and Conference Committees shall, at the end of 
each quarter, present to the Secretary of the National Lodge, an 
itemized report of their actual lost time in the mill and all travel- 
ling and other necessary expenses incurred by them in the dis- 
charge of their duties, which shall be paid by the National 
Association. (See Section 8 of this Article.) 

Sec. 12. The term of office of the President, Secretary, 
Treasurer, and Trustees of the National Lodge, also the Vice- 
Presidents of the several Districts and Divisions, shall not expire 
until the first day of October, after a successor to either of them 

has been elected. 

ARTICLE V. — Revenue. 

Section i. The revenue of this Association shall be de- 
rived as follows : — 

For issuing a Charter to a Subordinate Lodge, $5.00; new 
Seal, $6.00 ; remodeling an old Seal, $4.50 ; Rituals, $1.00 each ; 
Due and Withdrawal Cards, 10 cents each ; Constitution and 
General Laws, 10 cents each ; Blank Reports, 10 cents each. 

Sec. 2. In order to create a fund to meet the expenses of the 
National Association it shall be the duty of the President to 
assess a quarterly tax on the different Subordinate Lodges, in 
proportion to the number of taxable members on the last re- 
port preceding the date assessments are made, sufficient to de- 
fray the expenses of the National Association. 



354 APPENDIX. 

Sec. 3. In order to create a fund for the support of victim* 
ized members, or such members as may be engaged in legalized 
strikes, it shall be required that each member of the Association 
shall pay to his lodge, for the Protective Fund, the sum of 
twenty-five cents per month. 

Sec. 4. At the last stated meeting in each quarter the 
Financial Secretary of each lodge shall report to the lodge the 
correct number of members on his books taxable to the Protec- 
tive Fund for the quarter, when an order shall be drawn on the 
Treasurer for a sum equal to seventy-five cents for every member 
on the books thus reported by the Financial Secretary, and the 
sum thus drawn on the Treasurer shall be given to the Corre- 
sponding Representative, who shall, as soon as possible, for- 
ward the same to the Secretary of the National Lodge, who will 
receipt therefor. 

Sec. 5. In order to replenish the Protective Fund when it 
has been depleted by a long and continuous drain thereon, the 
President of the National Lodge shall have discretionary power 
to levy a special assessment upon each member reported in good 
standing on the past quarterly report, except members on strike 
or out of work two weeks, which assessment must be collected 
by the Financial Secretary of the*lodge and sent to the Secre- 
tary of the National Lodge without delay. 

Sec. 6. Any member who is sick or out of employment dur- 
ing the period of one full month shall be exempt from paying 
the twenty-five cents per month to the Protective Fund until he 
recovers from his sickness or finds employment. But members 
out of employment must report the fact to their lodge at every 
regular meeting or be charged with the twenty-five cents per 
month to the Protective Fund. 

Sec. 7. All moneys due the National Association shall be 
forwarded to the Secretary thereof by draft (on New York, 
Philadelphia, or Pittsburg), Express, P. O. Order, or Registered 
Letter. For checks sent on any bank, except in the city of 
Pittsburg, twenty-five cents extra will be charged for collection. 



APPENDIX. 355 



ARTICLE VII. — Strikes. 



Section i. No Sub-Lodge under the jurisdiction of this 
Association shall be permitted to enter into a strike unless 
authorized by the Executive Committee of their district or 
division. 

Sec. 2. When the Executive Committee of a district or 
division find it necessary, in accordance with the laws of this 
Association, to legalize a strike in any one department of a 
mill or works, it shall be required that the men of all other de- 
partments shall also cease work until the difficulty is settled. 

Sec. 3. When a strike has been legalized, and the general 
office of the Association has been properly notified of the fact, 
the Secretary of the National Lodge shall at once prepare a 
printed statement of all the facts as near as possible, and for- 
ward to all lodges, warning all true men not to accept work in 
such mills. 

Sec. 4. Any Subordinate Lodge entering into a strike in 
the manner provided by the laws of this Association, shall re- 
ceive from the Protective Fund the sum of four dollars ($4.00) 
per week for each member actually engaged in the strike in the 
mill over, which the lodge has jurisdiction, provided they remain 
in the locality of the strike, or notify the Corresponding Repre- 
sentative of that lodge of their location, and their being unem- 
ployed each week while on strike, and have held membership in 
the Association for six months, are not in arrears, and the lodge 
to which they belong is in good standing in the National Asso- 
ciation. This section also applies to members who are standing 
turns in the mill on strike, and who hold no other situation 
except that of standing turns in that mill. 

Sec. 5. No member shall be entitled to strike benefits for 
the first two weeks while on a legalized strike. Payment of 
benefits shall date from the commencement of the fourth week 
after the strike has been legalized, and no benefits shall be 
allowed for the fractional part of the first week. 

Sec. 6. A member who has been suspended or expelled shall 
not receive any strike benefits until six months after he has been 
restored to membership. 



356 APPENDIX. 

Sec. 7. If any member or members, while receiving benefits 
from this Association shall work three or more days in one week, 
at any job, either in or outside of a mill or factory, he or they 
shall not be entitled to benefits for that week. 

Sec. 8. Any member engaged in a legalized strike, procuring 
a permanent situation elsewhere, forfeits his claims to strike 
benefits during the continuance of such strike. 

ARTICLE VIII.— Victimized Members. 

Section i . Should any member or members of this Associa- 
tion be discharged (victimized) from his or their employment for 
taking an active part in the affairs of this Association, either as 
a member of the Mill or Conference Committee, or for otherwise 
being active in promoting and guarding the interests of this 
Association, such member or members shall use his or their best 
endeavors, with the Manager, to get reinstated, and failing in 
this, he or they shall then and there report such case to the 
chairman of the Mill Committee, who shall at once proceed to 
investigate the case as set forth in Sections 2 and 3 of Article 
VI. Should the committee fail to get the brother or brothers 
reinstated, they shall then carry the case to the lodge in precisely 
the same manner as in cases where the whole mill is involved in 
difficulty, and in no case of individual discharge (except the 
Mill Committee have good grounds to believe that the brother 
is discharged without just cause), shall such job be declared 
vacant until the Executive Committee of the district or division 
has decided the case. 

Sec. 2. Should the Executive Committee of the district or 
division, after deciding the brother victimized, deem the organ- 
ization unable to sustain a strike for his reinstatement, he shall 
receive from the Protective Fund of the Association six dollars 
($6.00) per week until another situation has been procured for 
him, either by himself or other members of the Association. 
The law applying to the payment of victimized benefits shall be 
the same as that governing the payment of strike benefits. 
(See Sections 5, 6 and 7 of Article VII.) 



APPENDIX. 357 

ARTICLE X. — Scale of Prices. 

Section i. Wherever practicable, steps shall be taken to 
provide a scale of prices for every trade or calling in each dis- 
trict represented in this Association. 

ARTICLE XVII. — Dishonorable Members. 
Section i. Any member robbing or embezzling from a 
brother member, or leaving a member in debt with intent to 
defraud by not giving proper notice of his departure, or has 
been fraudulently receiving or misapplying the funds of the 
Association, or the money of any member or candidate intrusted 
to him for payment of the same, or by divulging any of the pro- 
ceedings of his lodge, or who has slandered any brother mem- 
ber, or advocated division of the funds or separation of lodge 
districts, or by acting contrary to the established rules of this 
Association on any question affecting the price of labor, or the 
system of working in any district, if opposed to the interests of 
his fellow-workmen in keeping with the rules of this Association, 
shall, upon trial and conviction thereof, be punished by fine, sus- 
pension, or expulsion, as may be determined by two-thirds of the 
members present. 

ARTICLE XXVIII. — Fines for Various Causes. 

Section i . Officers and members of Subordinate Lodges are 
required to be punctual in their attendance. 

Sec. 2. Officers of Subordinate Lodges failing to attend the 
regular meetings of the lodge shall, for each omission, be fined 
twenty-five cents, unless satisfactory reasons can be shown, in 
which case the fine shall be remitted. 

Sec. 3. Members of Subordinate Lodges failing to attend 
meetings of their lodge at least once a month, shall be fined the 
sum of ten cents, unless excused through sickness or some un- 
avoidable cause. 

Sec. 4. Any member of Subordinate Lodges failing to appear 
at the last stated meeting in June and December, shall be fined 
fifty cents, unless he can give satisfactory evidence that it was 
impossible to attend. 



358 APPENDIX. 

Sec. 5. Any member of Subordinate lodges persisting in 
using unseemly language, or in an indecent manner giving 
offence to a brother member, or by offensive conduct, shall be 
fined one dollar for the first offence, and if he still persists in the 
unmanly use of such language, he shall be excluded from the 
lodge room, and not permitted to re-enter during the meeting. 

Sec. 6. The Chairman of any committee failing to report at 
the time required, unless further time be granted, shall be fined 
one dollar. Such fine, however, shall be remitted when satisfac- 
tory explanations are given. 

Sec. 7. Any member entering a Subordinate Lodge under 
the influence of liquor, shall for the mst offence be fined one 
dollar, and double the sum for every subsequent offence. 

Sec. 8. Any member of a Subordinate Lodge violating his 
obligation to this Order, shall be liable to a fine of not less than 
three dollars, reprimand, suspension, or expulsion, according to 
a decision of his lodge, on a two-thirds majority. 

Sec. 9. Any Corresponding Representative failing or neglect- 
ing to prepare and forward the quarterly report of his lodge, or 
to attend to such other duties as pertain to his office, shall be 
fined two dollars. 

Sec. 10. All fines thus imposed, if not paid at the time, shall 
be charged by the Financial Secretary to the person from whom 
due, and shall stand against such person as regular dues, and 
must be liquidated to entitle him to any privileges or benefits of 
this Association. ^ 



MANIFESTO OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING 
PEOPLES' ASSOCIATION. 

To the Workingmen of America. 

Fellow-Workmen \ The Declaration of Independence 
says : — 

" . . . But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pur- 
suing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce 



APPENDIX. 359 

them (the people) under absolute Despotism, it is their right, 
it is their ditty to throw off such government and provide new 
guards for their future security. " 

This thought of Thomas Jefferson was the justification for 
armed resistance by our forefathers, which gave birth to our 
Republic, and do not the necessities of our present time compel 
us to reassert their declaration ? 

Fellow- Workmen, we ask you to give us your attention for a 
few moments. We ask you candidly to read the following mani- 
festo issued in your behalf, in the behalf of your wives and chil- 
dren, in behalf of humanity and progress. 

Our present society is founded on the expoliation of the prop- 
ertyless classes by the propertied. This expoliation is such that 
the propertied (capitalists) buy the working force body and soul 
of the propertyless, for the price of the mere costs of existence 
(wages), and take for themselves, i.e., steal, the amount of new 
values (products) which exceeds this price, whereby wages are 
made to represent the necessities instead of the earnings of the 
wage-laborer. 

As the non-possessing classes are forced* by their poverty to 
offer for sale to the propertied their working forces, and as our 
present production on a grand scale enforces technical develop- 
ment with immense rapidity, so that by the application of an 
always decreasing number of human working forces, an always 
increasing amount of products is created ; so does the supply of 
working forces increase constantly, while the demand therefor 
decreases. This is the reason why the workers compete more 
and more intensely in selling themselves, causing their wages to 
sink, or at least on the average, never raising them above the 
margin necessary for keeping intact their working ability. 

Whilst by this process the propertyless are entirely debarred 
from entering the ranks of the propertied, even by the most 
strenuous exertions, the propertied, by means of the ever- 
increasing plundering of the working class, are becoming richer 
day by day, without in any way being themselves productive. 

If now and then one of the propertyless class become rich, it 
is not by their own labor, but from opportunities which they 



360 APPENDIX. 

have to speculate upon, and absorb the labor-product of 
others. 

With the accumulation of individual wealth, the greed and 
power of the propertied grows. They use all the means for com- 
peting among themselves for the robbery of the people. In this 
struggle, generally, the less-propertied (middle class) are over- 
come, while the great capitalists, par excellence, swell their 
wealth enormously, concentrate entire branches of production, 
as well as trade and intercommunication, into their hands, and 
develop into monopolists. The increase of products, accom- 
panied by simultaneous decrease of the average income of the 
working mass of the people, leads to^so-called " business " and 
" commercial " crises, when the misery of the wage-workers is 
forced to the extreme. 

For illustration, the last census of the United States shows 
that after deducting the cost of raw material, interest, rents, risks, 
etc., the propertied class have absorbed — i.e., stolen — more 
than five-eighths of all products, leaving scarcely three-eighths to 
the producers. The propertied class, being scarcely one-tenth 
of our population, a^nd in spite of their luxury and extravagance, 
unable to consume their enormous "profits," and the produc- 
ers, unable to consume more than they receive, — three-eighths, 
— so-called "over-productions" must necessarily take place. 
The terrible results of panics are well known. 

The increasing eradication of working forces from the pro- 
ductive process, annually increases the percentage of the prop- 
ertyless population, which becomes pauperized, and is driven to 
" crime," vagabondage, prostitution, suicide, starvation, and 
general depravity. This system is unjust, insane, and murderous. 
It is therefore necessary to totally destroy it with and by all 
means, and with the greatest energy on the part of every one 
who suffers by it, and who does not want to be made culpable 
for its continued existence by his inactivity. 

Agitation for the purpose of organization ; organization for 
the purpose of rebellion. In these few words the ways are 
marked, which the workers must take if they want to be rid of 
their chains, as the economic condition is the same in all coun- 



APPENDIX. 361 

tries of so-called " civilization," as the governments of all Mon- 
archies and Republics work hand in hand for the purpose of 
opposing all movements of the thinking part of the workers, as 
finally the victory in the decisive combat of the proletarians 
against their oppressors can only be gained by the simultaneous 
struggle along the whole line of the bourgeois (capitalistic) 
society, so therefore the international fraternity of peoples, as 
expressed in the International Working People's Association, 
presents itself a self-evident necessity. 

True order should take its place. This can only be achieved 
when all implements of labor — the soil and other premises of 
production, in short, capital produced by labor — is changed into 
societary property. Only by this presupposition is destroyed 
every possibility of the future spoliation of man by man. Only 
by common, undivided capital can all be enabled to enjoy in 
their fulness the fruits of the common toil. Only by the impossi- 
bility of accumulating individual (private) capital can every one 
be compelled to work who makes a demand to live. 

This order of things allows production to regulate itself ac- 
cording to the demand of the whole people, so that nobody need 
work more than a few hours a day, and that all nevertheless can 
satisfy their needs. Hereby time and opportunity are given for 
opening to the people the way to the highest possible civiliza- 
tion ; the privileges of higher intelligence fall with the privileges 
of wealth and birth. To the achievement of such a system the 
political organizations of the capitalistic classes — be they mon- 
archies or republics — form the barriers. These political struc- 
tures (States), which are completely in the hands of the propertied, 
have no other purpose than the upholding of the present order 
of expoliation. 

All laws are directed against the working people. In so far 
as the opposite appears to be the case, they serve on one hand 
to blind the worker, while on the other hand they are simply 
evaded. Even the school serves only the purpose of furnishing 
the offspring of the wealthy with those qualities necessary to up- 
hold their class domination. The children of the poor get 
scarcely a formal elementary training, and this, too, is mainly 



362 APPENDIX. 

directed to such branches as tend to producing prejudices, arro- 
gance, and servility ; in short, want of sense. The Church finally 
seeks to make complete idiots out of the mass and to make them 
forego the paradise on earth by promising a fictitious heaven. 
The capitalistic press, on the other hand, takes care of the con- 
fusion of spirits in public life. All these institutions, far from 
aiding in the education of the masses, have for their object the 
keeping in ignorance of the people. They are all in the pay and 
under the direction of the capitalistic classes. The workers can 
therefore expect no help from any capitalistic party in their 
struggle against the existing system. They must achieve their 
liberation by their own efforts. As ia/former times a privileged 
class never surrendered its tyranny, neither can it be expected 
that the capitalists of this age will give up their rulership without 
being forced to do it. 

If there ever could have been any question on this point, it 
should long ago have been dispelled by the brutalities which the 
bourgeoisie of all countries — in America as well as in Europe — 
constantly commits, as often as the proletariat anywhere ener- 
getically move to better their condition. It becomes, therefore, 
self-evident that the struggle of the proletariat with the burgeoisie 
must have a violent revolutionary character. 

We could show by scores of illustrations that all attempts in 
the past to reform this monstrous system by peaceable means, 
such as the ballot, have been futile, and all such efforts in the 
future must necessarily be so, for the following reasons : — 

The political institutions of our time are the agencies of the 
propertied class ; their mission is the upholding of the privileges 
of their masters ; any reform in your own behalf would curtail 
these privileges. To this they will not and cannot consent, for 
it would be suicidal to themselves. 

That they will not resign their privileges voluntarily we know ; 
that they will not make any concessions to us we likewise know. 
Since we must then rely upon the kindness of our masters for 
whatever redress we have, and knowing that from them no good 
may be expected, there remains but one recourse — force! 
Our forefathers have not only told us that against despots force 



APPENDIX. 363 

fs justifiable, because it is the only means, but they themselves 
have set the immemorial example. 

By force our ancestors liberated themselves from political op* 
pression, by force their children will have to liberate themselves 
from economic bondage. "It is, therefore, your right; it is 
your duty," says Jefferson ; "to arms ! " 

What we would achieve is, therefore, plainly and simply, — 

First, Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, 
i.e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international 
action. 

Second, Establishment of a free society based upon co-opera- 
tive organization of production. 

Third, Free exchange of equivalent products by and between 
the productive organizations without commerce and profit- 
mo ngery. 

Fourth, Organization of education on a secular, scientific, 
and equal basis for both sexes. 

Fifth, Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race. 

Sixth, Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between 
the autonomous (independent) communes and associations, rest- 
ing on a federalistic basis. 

Whoever agrees with this ideal let him grasp our outstretched 
brother hands ! 

Proletarians of all countries, unite ! 

Fellow-workmen, all we ieed for the achievement of this 
great end is ORGANIZATION and UNITY. 

There exists now no great obstacle to that unity. The work 
of peaceful education and revolutionary conspiracy well can and 
ought to run in parallel lines. 

The day has come for solidarity. Join our ranks ! Let the 
drum beat defiantly the roll of battle, " Workmen of all lands, 
unite ! You have nothing to loose but your chains ; you have a 
world to win ! " 

Tremble, oppressors of the world ! Not far beyond your pur- 
blind sight there dawns the scarlet and sable lights of the Judg- 
ment Day. 



364 APPENDIX. 

VI. 

LETTER TO TRAMPS. 

To Tramps, the Unemployed, the Disinherited, and 
Miserable. 

A word to the 35,000 now tramping the streets of this great 
city, with hands in pockets, gazing listlessly about you at the 
evidences of wealth and pleasure of which you own no part, 
not sufficient even to purchase yourself a bit of food with which 
to appease the pangs of hunger now gnawing at your vitals. It 
is with you and the hundreds of thousands of others similarly 
situated in this great land of plenty, that I wish to have a word. 

Have you not worked hard all your life, since you were old 
enough for your labor to be of use in the production of wealth ? 
Have you not toiled long, hard, and laboriously in producing 
wealth ? And in all those years of drudgery, do you not know 
you have produced thousand upon thousands of dollars' worth of 
wealth, which you did not then, do not now, and unless you ACT t 
never will, own any part in? Do you not know that when you 
were harnessed to a machine, and that machine harnessed to 
steam, and thus you toiled your ten, twelve, and sixteen hours in 
the twenty-four, that during this time in all these years you re- 
ceived only enough of your labor product to furnish yourself the 
bare, coarse necessaries of life, and that when you wished to 
purchase anything for yourself and family it always had to be of 
the cheapest quality? If you wanted to go anywhere you had 
to wait until Sunday, so little did you receive for your unremit- 
ting toil that you dare not stop for a moment, as it were? And 
do you not know that with all your squeezing, pinching, and 
economizing, you never were enabled to keep but a few days ahead 
of the wolves of want ? And that at last when the caprice of 
your employer saw fit to create an artificial famine by limiting 
production, that the fires in the furnace were extinguished, the 
iron horse to which you had been harnessed was stilled, the 
factory door locked up, you turned upon the highway a tramp, 
with hunger in your stomach and rags upon your back? 



APPENDIX. 365 

Yet your employer told you that it was over-production which 
made him close up. Who cared for the bitter tears and heart- 
pangs of your loving wife and helpless children, when you bid 
them a loving " God bless you ! " and turned upon the tramper's 
road to seek employment elsewhere? I say, who cared for those 
heartaches and pains ? You were only a tramp now, to be exe- 
crated and denounced as a " worthless tramp and a vagrant" by 
that very class who had been engaged all those years in robbing 
you and yours. Then can you not see that the " good boss" or 
the " bad boss" cuts no figure whatever? that you are the com- 
mon prey of both, and that their mission is simply robbery? 
Can you not see that it is the industrial system and not the 
" boss " which must be changed ? 

Now, when all these bright summer and autumn days are go- 
ing by, and you have no employment, and consequently can save 
up nothing, and when the winter's blast sweeps down from the 
north, and all the earth is wrapped in a shroud of ice, hearken 
not to the voice of the hypocrite who will tell you that it was 
ordained of God that " the poor ye have always " ; or to the arro- 
gant robber who v/ill say to you that you " drank up all your 
wages last summer when you had work, and that is the reason 
why you have nothing now, and the workhouse or the woodyard 
is too good for you ; that you ought to be shot." And shoot 
you they will if you present your petitions in too emphatic a 
manner. So hearken not to them, but list ! Next winter, when 
the cold blasts are creeping through the rents in your seedy gar- 
ments ; when the frost is biting your feet through the holes in 
your worn-out shoes, and when all wretchedness seems to have 
centered in and upon you ; when misery has marked you for her 
own, and life has become a burden and existence a mockery; 
when you have walked the streets by day, and slept upon hard 
boards by night, and at last determined by your own hand to 
take your life, — for you would rather go out into utter nothing- 
ness than to longer endure an existence which has become such 
a burden, — so, perchance, you determine to dash yourself into 
the cold embrace of the lake rather than longer suffer thus. But 
halt before you commit this last tragic act in the drama of your 



366 APPENDIX. 

simple existence. Stop ! Is there nothing you can do to insure 
those whom you are about to orphan against a like fate? The 
waves will only dash over you in mockery of your rash act ; but 
stroll you down the avenues of the rich, and look through the 
magnificent plate windows into their voluptuous homes, and here 
you will discover the very identical robbers who have despoiled 
you and yours. Then let your tragedy be enacted here I Awaken 
them from their wanton sports at your expense. Send forth 
your petition, and let them read it by the red glare of destruction. 
Thus when you cast " one long, lingering look behind," you can 
be assured that you have spoken to these robbers in the only 
language which they have ever been able to understand ; for 
they have never yet deigned to notice any petition from their 
slaves that they were not compelled to read by the red glare 
bursting from the cannons' mouths, or that was not handed to 
them upon the point of the sword. You need no organization 
when you make up your mind to present this kind of petition. 
In fact, an organization would be a detriment to you ; but each 
of you hungry tramps who read these lines avail yourselves of 
those little methods of warfare which Science has placed in the 
hands of the poor man, and you will become a power in this 
or any other land. 
Learn the use of explosives ! 



VII. 
PLATFORM OF THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 

Labor being the only creator of all wealth and civilization, it 
rightfully follows that those who perform all labor and create all 
wealth should enjoy the result of their toil. 

But this is rendered impossible by the modern system of pro- 
duction, which, since the discovery of steam-power and since 
the general introduction of machinery, is in all branches of in- 
dustry carried with such gigantic means and appliances as but a 
few are able to possess. 



APPENDIX. 367 

The present industrial system is co-operative in one respect 
only, which is, That not, as in former times, the individual 
works alone for his own account, but dozens, hundreds, and 
thousands of men work together in shops, in mines, on huge 
farms and lands, co-operating according to the most efficient 
division of labor. But the fruits of this co-operative labor are 
not reaped by the workers themselves, but are in a great meas- 
ure appropriated by the owners of the means of production ; to 
wit, of the machines, of the factories, of the mines, and of the 
land. 

This system, by gradually extinguishing the middle class, nec- 
essarily produces two separate sets of men : That class of the 
workers, and that of the great bosses. 

It brings forth as its natural outgrowths, — 

The planlessness and reckless rate of production. 

The waste of human and natural forces. 

The commercial and industrial crisis. 

The constant uncertainty of the material existence of the 
wage- workers. 

The misery of the proletarian masses. 

The accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. 

Such a condition, which under the present industrial regime 
cannot but become more and more aggravated, is inconsistent 
with the interests of mankind, with the principles of justice and 
true democracy, as it destroys those rights which the Declara- 
tion of Independence of the United States held to be inalienable 
in all men ; viz., life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

This condition shortens and imperils life by want and misery. 
It destroys liberty because the economical subjection of the 
wage-workers to the owners of the means of production imme- 
diately leads to their political dependence, and it finally frus- 
trates the pursuit of happiness, which is never possible when 
life and personal liberty are in constant danger. 

To put an end to this degrading state of things, we strive to 
introduce the perfect system of co-operative production ; that 
is, we demand that the workers obtain the undivided product of 
their toil. 



368 APPENDIX. 

This being only feasible by securing to the workers control of 
the means of production, 

We demand, — 

That the land, the instruments of production (machines, fac- 
tories, etc.), and the products of labor become the common 
property of the whole people ; and, 

That all production be organized co-operatively, and be car- 
ried on under the direction of the commonwealth ; as also the 
co-operative distribution of the products according to the ser- 
vice rendered, and to the just needs of the individuals. 

To realize our demands, we strive to gain control of the polit- 
ical power, with all proper means. -^ 

The Socialistic Labor Party claims the title, " Labor Party," 
because it recognizes the existence of an oppressed class of 
wage-workers as its fundamental truth, and the emancipation of 
this oppressed laboring class as its foremost object. 



Demands for the Amelioration of the Condition of the 
Working People under the Present Industrial Sys- 
tem of Society. 

The Socialistic Labor Party strives for a radical revision o\ 
the Constitution and Statutes of the United States, the States 
and Municipalities, according to the following demands : — 

a. social demands. 

i. The United States shall take possession of the railroads, 
canals, telegraphs, telephones, and all other means of public 
transportation. 

2. The municipalities to take possession of the local railroads, 
of ferries, and of the supply of light to streets and public places. 

3. Public lands to be declared inalienable. They shall be 
leased according to fixed principles. Revocation of all grants 
of lands by the United States to corporations or individuals, the 
conditions of which have not been complied with or which are 
otherwise illegal. 



APPENDIX. 369 

4. The United States to have the exclusive right to issue 
money. 

5. Congressional legislation providing for the scientific man- 
agement of forests and waterways, and prohibiting the waste of 
the natural resources of the country. 

6. The United States to have the right of expropriation of 
running patents, new inventions to be free to all, but inventors 
to be remunerated by national rewards. 

7. Legal provision that the rent of dwellings shall not exceed 
a certain percentage of the value of the buildings as taxed by 
the municipality. 

8. Inauguration of public works in times of economical de- 
pression. 

9. Progressive income tax and tax on inheritances ; but 
smaller incomes to be exempt. 

10. Compulsory school education of all children under four- 
teen years of age, instruction in all educational institutions to be 
gratuitous, and to be made accessible to all by public assistance 
(furnishing meals, clothes, books, etc.). All instruction to be 
under the direction of the United States and to be organized on 
a uniform plan. 

11. Repeal of all pauper, tramp, conspiracy, and temperance 
laws. Unabridged right of combination. 

12. Official statistics concerning the condition of labor. Pro- 
hibition of the employment of children in the school age, and 
the employment of female labor in occupations detrimental to 
health or morality. Prohibition of the convict labor contract 
system. 

13. All wages to be paid in cash money. Equalization by 
law of women's wages with those of men where equal service is 
performed. 

14. Laws for the protection of life and limbs of working 
people, and an efficient employer's liability law. 

15. Legal incorporation of trades-unions. 

16. Reduction of the hours of labor in proportion to the 
progress of production ; establishment by Act of Congress of a 
legal work-day of not more than eight hours for all industrial 



370 APPENDIX. 

workers, and corresponding provisions for all agricultural 
laborers. 

b. POLITICAL DEMANDS. 

1. Abolition of the Presidency, Vice-Presidency, and Senate 
of the United States. An Executive Board to be established, 
whose members are to be elected, and may at any time be re- 
called by the House of Representatives as the only legislative 
body. The States and Municipalities to adopt corresponding 
amendments of their constitution and statutes. 

2. Municipal self-government. 

3. Direct vote and secret ballots in all elections. Universal 
and equal right of suffrage without regard to color, creed, or sex. 
Election days to be legal holidays. The principle of minority 
representation to be introduced. 

4. The people to have the right to propose laws (initiative) 
and to vote upon all laws of importance (Referendum.) 

5. The members of all legislative bodies to be responsible to 
and subject to recall by the constituency. 

6. Uniform law throughout the United States. Administra- 
tion of justice to be free of charge. Abolition of capital pun- 
ishment. 

7. Separation of all public affairs from religion ; church prop- 
erty to be subject to taxation. 

8. Uniform national marriage laws. Divorce to be granted 
upon mutual consent, and upon providing for the care of the 
children. 



VIII. 



A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF 
THE WAGE-WORKERS OF THE UNITED STATES 
OF AMERICA IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. 

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary 
for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have con- 
nected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of 



APPENDIX. 371 

earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature 
and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinion 
of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which 
impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are 
created free and equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness, and the right of each to the un- 
divided product of his labor. 

That to secure these rights governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned ; that whenever any form of government becomes destruc- 
tive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to 
abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its founda- 
tion on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form 
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and 
happiness. 

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long estab- 
lished should not be changed for light and transient causes ; 
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are 
more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right 
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 

But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing 
invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them 
under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to 
throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their 
future security. Such has been the patient sufferances of the 
people of these United States, and such is now the necessity 
which constrains them to alter their former system of govern- 
ment. 

The history of the present government of these United States 
is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in 
direct object, the establishment of a system of absolute tyranny 
and oppression over the people of these States. 

To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world: 

It has refused its assent to laws the most wholesome for the 
public good. 



372 APPENDIX. 

It has refused to pass laws for the accommodation of largf 
districts of people. 

It has in every way betrayed the interests of the people. 

It has manipulated the votes of the people to subserve the 
personal ends of its officials. 

It has placed in offices of public trust, self-admitted thieves 
and bribe-takers. 

It has created a multitude of new offices, and has sent out 
swarms of officials to harass the people. 

It has instituted a system under which public office may be 
bought and sold, and has established a market-value for the 
votes of the ignorant. 

It has, in violation of its own formulated laws, continuously 
appropriated public funds and public offices, that the rule of a 
faction might be indefinitely prolonged. 

It has, in the shape of bastard appropriations, recklessly dis- 
tributed the wealth which our tax-payers year after year pour 
into the governmental coffers, that its members might share in 
the spoils. 

It has permitted and assisted railroad corporations to assume 
the control of entire States. 

It has upheld such corporations by locating in such States, 
judges who are empowered to construe the Constitution to their 
own ends. 

It has created among the people distinctions as marked as 
those under monarchial reign. 

It has established a "shoddy aristocracy " in our midst. 

It has refused legal incorporation to organized bodies of 
orderly workingmen. 

It has legislated always for the interests of the few as against 
the interests of the many. 

As the result : 

Justice has become a by-word. 

Patriotism is unknown. 

In the mad rush for wealth and political sinecure, humanity 
and morality have been forgotten ; " labor" has been humiliated 
and trampled in the mud. 



APPENDIX. 373 

"God" has assumed the figure of the " mighty dollar." 

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for 
redress : our repeated petitions have been answered only by 
repeated injury. 

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our government 
officials. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts 
made to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have 
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have 
conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to cease 
these usurpations, but in all cases have they been deaf to the 
voice of justice. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the wage-workers of the 
United States of America, in General Congress assembled, 
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude 
of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the 
wage-workers here represented, solemnly publish and declare, 
that the Trade and Labor Organizations herein represented are, 
and of right ought to be, free and independent organizations ; 
that they are absolved from all political allegiance to the present 
government, and to the old political parties, and that all political 
connection between them is, and ought to be totally dissolved ; 
and that, as free and independent organizations, they have full 
power to formulate their own laws and to enforce them, by the 
boycott, by social ostracism, and by any and all peaceful measures 
which may hereafter be deemed necessary. 

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance 
upon the protection of a Divine Providence, we mutually pledge 
to each other our lives, our services, and our sacred honor, 

July 4, 1886. Signed: 

Representatives of Labor Organizations. 



APPENDIX II. 



THE RELATION OF TEMPERANCE REFORM TO 
THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

By Richard T. Ely. 

Hon. A. J. Streeter, prominent in the ranks of organized 
farmers and workingmen, has recently written a letter in favor 
of an alliance between the advocates of temperance reform and 
the advocates of labor reform. This letter is a plain manifesta- 
tion of a growth which has been taking place for several years. 

Labor organizations and their leaders have evidently been 
more and more impressed with the fact that intemperance is one 
of the deadliest foes of the workingmen of this country, and their 
sentiment in favor of temperance reform has been becoming con- 
stantly more intense. Evidences of this abound, and may be 
found in labor platforms, in reports of meetings of workingmen, 
and in the labor press. It is scarcely too much to say that the 
labor organizations of the country are, at least, temperance or- 
ganizations, and many of their members and leaders are out- 
spoken total abstainers and prohibitionists. Every one knows 
that this is the case with that much misunderstood and more 
maligned organization, the Knights of Labor. Very impressive 
must have been the public pledge of total abstinence given to 
Mr. Powderly at the Richmond convention a few years since, by 
all the members of the executive board. A little later I attended 
a fair of the Knights of Labor in Baltimore and found on sale 
no beverage stronger than lemonade. 

On the other hand, it is equally natural that the leaders of the 
great temperance movement should be thoroughly in sympathy 
with all just aspirations of the toiling men and women of the 



376 APPENDIX II 

world. What else but broad humanitarian views could have led 
these noble men and women to dedicate their lives to the cause 
of temperance ? Many of them regarded the temperance move- 
ment as chiefly a labor movement. The evil of intemperance 
attracted their attention above all others, because it seemed to 
them the greatest curse of the age. 

If the labor movement has broadened in the direction of tem- 
perance, it is equally certain that the current of temperance re- 
form is broadening out and taking in a considerable portion of 
what is called labor reform. The various platforms of the tem- 
perance party, framed by state and national conventions, make 
this plain, and efforts to eliminate parts of the platform dealing 
with other aspects of labor reform than temperance have been 
happily voted down. 

Any one who will read the testimony of Miss Frances E. Wil- 
lard, President of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
and of her excellent lieutenants, before the United States Senate 
Committee on Education and Labor, will be convinced that the 
scope of the work of that organization is anything but narrow. 
The testimony was taken in New York in October, 1883, and 
was published in 1885, by the Government Printing Office, as 
Volume II. of the Testimony taken by the Committee. Recog- 
nizing that prevention is always better than cure, heredity and 
hygiene receive special attention, and each has a department in 
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union assigned it. Scien- 
tific temperance instruction has become general over the entire 
length and breadth of the land within a few years, and it is due 
to these earnest workers. Cooking is also considered in its rela- 
tions to intemperance. I find this sentence in Miss Willard's 
testimony: " We think that if the people were taught to prepare 
food in a simple, hygienic manner, it would greatly redound to 
their benefit in establishing simple, unartificial habits." This 
confirms the utterance of a distinguished American physiologist 
that insufficient variety of food and poorly cooked food tend to 
intemperance by producing an unnatural craving for strong drink. 
A " Flower Mission," for taking flowers to the sick, is mentioned 
in another department of work. Military drill among boys has also 



APPENDIX II. 377 

been introduced as a good feature of temperance reform. But it is 
not easy to enumerate all the ramifications of this temperance work. 
It is seen clearly by women like Miss Willard that whatever builds 
up the home, fosters patriotism, and stimulates love for our fellow- 
men, must diminish intemperance. The temperance movement 
is not a single movement. As I take it, the word temperance 
indicates a centre of great social activity. The temperance move- 
ment is a deep, wide movement of social reform which centres in 
temperance, but from that centre spreads out in ever more and 
more inclusive circles until it touches the entire life of society. 

It is well, then, in view of these circumstances, to look at the 
temperance movement from the standpoint of the workingman, 
and to consider the labor movement from the standpoint of the 
temperance reformer. If the two cannot be coalesced, it is at 
least desirable that they should proceed in parallel lines. 

I. Let us reflect for a moment on the loss occasioned to the 
workingmen of the United States by the use of intoxicating 
drinks. The direct loss has been often described and its amount 
can be readily learned by a perusal of easily accessible tracts and 
pamphlets. The importance of a few cents a day is however not 
sufficiently appreciated by people in moderate circumstances, and 
still less is it by wage-earners. A street-car line in Baltimore 
charges five cents for a single fare, but sells six tickets for twenty- 
five cents. It may be put this way: if you invest twenty-five 
cents, you receive one extra ticket, good for a five-cent ride ; that 
is, you make twenty per cent on your investment, which is equal 
to four or five years' interest on the money. Yet I have ridden 
on a car of this line when out of ten persons I was the only one 
to put a ticket into the box. In Washington, where all lines are 
compelled by law to sell six tickets for twenty-five cents, one may 
any day witness similar evidences of thriftlessness. You may 
even see a man pay fifteen cents in fares for three persons, treat- 
ing two others, while by investing ten cents additional he could 
get six tickets. 

This illustration shows widespread and very general lack of 
thrift. The expenditure of money for intoxicating beverages is 
by far worse, for it is a loss not of twenty per cent, but of one 



378 APPENDIX II 

hundred per cent. Five cents or ten cents a day seems like a 
small sum, but it is easy to show that after the expiration of 
a number of years it becomes a very considerable sum, sufficient, 
in most parts of the country, let us say, to pay for a comfortable 
home for an artisan in twenty years. But the direct loss is only 
a part, only the smallest part of the whole loss. The habit of 
thriftlessness grows, and it becomes ruinous to one's financial 
prospects, condemning one to a life of poverty. Waste for alco- 
holic beverages means generally waste for other injurious or 
useless indulgences. 

The sum of money which a workingman who is a moderate 
drinker, or only an occasional drinker, can save in a few years 
by the practice of total abstinence, may not seem large, and let 
us confess frankly that it is small, and, as the rate of interest 
falls, becomes smaller; but it is a mistake to undervalue the 
utility of a small sum of ready money, for at a critical period it 
will often prove to be the difference between a life of comfort, 
usefulness, health, contentment, and a life of discouragement 
and poverty. Even so small a sum as fifty dollars may be the 
turning-point, and a deposit of ten dollars in a savings bank will 
spare one many a humiliation. 

These are homely, old-fashioned arguments, but they cannot 
be repeated too often. They are unfortunately apt to arouse 
irritation and ill-will on the part of workingmen, because they 
are frequently put forward as the only thing which needs to be 
said on the subject of poverty. They are too often made a pre- 
text on the part of the well-to-do, for their failure to concern 
themselves with the labor problem. It is very comfortable to 
the self-complacency of a plutocrat, as he sips his champagne, 
to say, " If the workingmen would stop drinking and save their 
money, they would never lack in this land of plenty. Intem- 
perance is the cause of poverty and the only anti-poverty society 
needed is a society of one — each man for himself." Because 
this is so unjust and because its injustice is so keenly felt, the 
large grain of truth in it is too apt to be overlooked. It is this 
sort of talk more than anything else which has closed the ears 
of too many thinking workingmen to valid temperance argument 



APPENDIX II 379 

The time lost on account of intemperance, and the strength 
of body wasted, have frequently been mentioned. Professor 
Huxley, the naturalist, has told us what kind of a body — broad 
shoulders and deep chest — he would wish for his son. He lays 
stress on physical strength, because in this age of sharp com- 
petition the turning-point of a life may be included within a few 
months, weeks, or days, and during this time final success may 
depend on power to sustain continuous exertion of the most 
intense kind. It is frequently necessary, to enable one to take 
the tide of fortune at its flood, to undergo arduous toil for a 
period of even years. Doubtless life is too intense and com- 
petition is too sharp, but the struggle for life must always be 
severe, and there is no prospect of improvement in a near future. 
He who burdens himself with habits which waste even a little 
time and dissipate even a little physical energy, enters the race 
handicapped ; a loss of energy of which the loser may not even 
be conscious, has undoubtedly turned the scale of fortune against 
many a man. 

The loss of mental energy is far more serious, on the whole, 
than the loss of physical strength, and this greater loss is expe- 
rienced by many who never become intoxicated and who regard 
themselves as moderate drinkers. 

The wage-earning classes need every bit of mental capacity 
which they possess or can acquire, to enable them to attain well- 
being in the struggle of modern industrial life. The wage- 
earning classes, as classes, must act solidly together. The 
solidarity of their interest can be disputed by no fair-minded 
and competent observer. Now, if this is so, every wage-earner 
who wastes any of his resources of body or mind by the use of 
alcoholic drinks, is an enemy of his class. At what disadvantage 
in dealing with employers are sullen and incompetent men, with 
no reserve of accumulated earnings, as compared with bright, 
open, and determined men ! The talk about the equality of 
labor and capital in labor contracts is a farce, but why make the 
inequality needlessly great? Strikes occur too frequently, but 
that they are sometimes necessary is generally conceded. Up- 
right and intelligent men will be very careful about entering on 



380 APPENDIX II 

a strike, but when once undertaken, they will make a good fight. 
What is the effect of intemperance and attendant lawlessness on 
strikes? It is needless to answer the question. Disorder is so 
manifestly injurious to strikers, that unscrupulous employers have 
been accused of sending emissaries among them to stir it up. 
Workingmen should remember Cromwell's praying soldiers, and 
the ' *f they were to their finally vanquished enemies. I think 
that absolutely temperate strikers, fleeing all association with 
^ oons, opening every meeting of any sort with prayer, and 
holding a prayer-meeting or some kind of religious service every 
day, would inspire an unscrupulous individual or corporate em- 
ployer with a new terror. 

A good point was made in the testimony given by Mr. Alphonso 
Crosby before the United States Senate Committee, to which 
attention has already been called. He said that the wages of 
mechanics were set by drinking men, because drinking men 
were improvident, and, having no economic reserve, were obliged 
to take what they could get ; they had nothing to fall back on. 
This is in keeping with what has been said about the solidarity 
of the interests of labor. Nothing is more disastrous to a man 
who has something to sell than to be obliged to force it on the 
market. A commodity under those circumstances will frequently 
not bring half-price. Now he who is obliged to force labor on 
the labor market does a thing equally disastrous, and his conduct 
is injurious to every workingman. 

Intemperance weakens the working people in another way. 
It is made a reproach to them, and the innocent suffer with the 
guilty. It serves their opponents as a very efficient weapon. 
With the ordinary non-partisan — the man neither employer nor 
employed, in the usual sense — what is the most telling argument 
against the present agitation for the eight-hour day? Undoubt- 
edly this : " More leisure means more time and more money for 
the saloon." Doubtless this is untrue, but in a good cause we 
ought not to give our enemies any handle to use against us. 

A continual subject for discussion among workingmen is polit- 
ical action. It requires all the unimpaired power of the keenest 
intellects at their command, to decide what political course it is 



APPENDIX II. 381 

best to take, and when any course is taken, it demands the 
utmost of their patience and self-control. 

We hear in political economy of " the seen and the unseen," 
the unseen meaning simply that which is not readily seen. Now 
I think it is manifest that the worst effects of intemperance, con- 
sidered from the standpoint of the labor movement, belong to 
the unseen. Is it not evident that temperance workers „ I ong 
the best friends of the wage-earners of this country, and that any 
labor leader who has not sufficient mental power to grasp tli ,, 
is unfit for his position ? and, finally, that any intemperate laborer 
is an enemy to his class ? 

II. Let us now look at the labor movement from the stand- 
point of a broad-minded temperance reformer. 

We should, I think, first of all, fully grasp the fact that the 
excessive use of strong drink is not merely the work of the devil. 
Perhaps I do not make my meaning clear. What I want to say 
is this : Men do not indulge in the use of intoxicating beverages 
merely because they are moved by an evil influence, and, except 
in the case of confirmed drinkers, not because they care particu- 
larly for what they drink. I am inclined to think that only a 
lesser part of the strength of the saloon is due to the love for 
the liquor which it dispenses. We must go below surface phe- 
nomena, and inquire what gives the saloon its strength? for 
when we do so, we shall become convinced that mere negative 
work is not half enough. If we simply drive devils out, they 
will return, as we are told, in sevenfold strength. A power for 
good must be introduced to take the place of evil influences ex- 
pelled. The greater part of temperance reform must be positive 
work, and a failure to perceive this is, I think, one cause of 
many setbacks in the past, while an increasing recognition of 
'this principle is precisely one of the most hopeful features of the 
temperance movement of to-day. 

One main cause of the strength of the saloon is that it fur* 
nishes to the masses a convenient and always easily accessible 
meeting place and waiting place, free from restraints, and it is 
the only institution of the kind in American cities. One needs 
but to observe what can be seen any day and night in our cities 



382 APPENDIX II 

and to reflect seriously on its significance, to understand how 
far-reaching this proposition is. 

Rich men have their social clubs, but these institutions are 
beyond the reach of the poor. Workingmen often wish to meet 
to talk over some proposed course of action, let us say, political. 
Where shall they meet? One place, and only one place, is 
always open, and that is the saloon. Many saloons keep large, 
pleasant rooms which can be engaged free of charge. What a 
temptation is this ! Of course, the proprietor of the hall expects 
recompense, and every one who attends the meeting feels mor- 
ally bound to drink at least two glasses of beer. The meetings 
which workingmen hold in these days are very frequent, and on 
the whole these frequent meetings are commendable, but it is a 
continual difficulty to find suitable meeting places. 

What has been said is also a partial explanation of the strength 
of the saloon with the regular political parties. Many of the 
local headquarters are in saloons. 

We have as yet taken but one step in ascertaining the causes 
of the strength of the saloon. A Baltimore cooper talked some- 
what like this to a friend of mine : ' * What shall I do with my 
boys? I live in a small house, very hot in summer. I have 
eight children, one of them a crying, fretful infant, and when my 
boys come home after a hard day's work, they need recreation. 
They eat their supper and go on the streets and doubtless into 
the saloons, but I cannot say them nay. They are young fellows 
and must have some enjoyment, and there is nothing for them at 
home." My friend suggested the Y. M. C. A., but he shook his 
head. It was far away, and besides, he did not feel that his 
boys would be welcome. It was, moreover, expensive for a 
cooper's sons. 

Take the street-car drivers of Baltimore. They work twelve 
hours and more a day ; formerly, indeed, seventeen. The high- 
est pay is two dollars a day. When one of them in winter has a 
free evening, how shall he pass it ? Quite likely he has no friends 
with homes in the city, and to expect him to remain in his cold, 
cheerless attic is unreasonable. He wanders out on the street, 
he strolls about, he has nothing better to do. On every corner 



APPENDIX II. 383 

sees a saloon, and how warm it looks ! How attractive the 
bright colors ! how enticing the display of beautiful glass ! He 
hears cheerful laughter and merry voices, and if he enters, he is 
thoroughly welcome. The price of admission is five cents. Is 
it any wonder that he goes in ? 

Men more favorably situated feel this temptation, as many 
who have been students away from home know full well. I re- 
member meeting a Canadian student who had studied medicine 
in London. He said that on Sundays the only thing to do, if 
you did not want to pass the entire day in church, was to go to 
some place of temptation, for all the places of innocent recreation 
and amusement were closed. Many young men could tell the 
same tale. The devil has full swing on Sunday in great cities, 
for the churches make only a feeble competition for a few hours, 
and then are closed up. 

Take also the case of men out of work, and remember that 
men in factories are idle about one-tenth of the year, and often 
for a longer period. What are they to do during these recurring 
periods of idleness? 

Walking by a saloon, you may see a notice to the effect that 
base-ball scores are exhibited inside, and so they are always 
active to provide all those things and all those conveniences 
which men desire, and their pay is in liquor purchased, liquor 
with which those who drink would frequently as soon dispense 
as not. 

If what is written is true, it will show many defects in our 
" holly- tree " inns and temperance restaurants. It seems to be 
supposed that what is drunk and what is eaten is the only 
reason why men frequent saloons, whereas it is only one reason, 
and probably in a very large majority of cases only a subordinate 
reason. Such an inn was once started in Baltimore, but did not 
succeed. An intelligent workingman told me that in the first 
place it was inconveniently situated on Charles Street, far away 
from the workingmen's quarters, and that in the second place it 
was presided over by ladies, as he said, dressed " in the tip of 
the fashion.'" He felt very uneasy, and after drinking his cup 
of coffee, left, never to return. 



384 APPENDIX II 

We have already advanced far enough to consider a few reme- 
dies. In one way or another, earnest attempts should be made 
to provide for the public convenient meeting places free from the 
temptations of the saloons. The holly-tree inns are a move in 
the right direction, but they should offer all the attractions of a 
saloon without the intoxicating beverages. I do not think they 
should be kept by ladies, but by men who have been successful 
as proprietors and managers of liquor saloons. When such a 
man, as occasionally happens, feels the degradation and wrong 
of his occupation, and is willing to make a change, this at once 
furnishes him with occupation, perhaps not so profitable, but at 
least sufficient to support him. All kinds of non-intoxicating 
beverages and good lunches should be provided at the lowest 
possible price ; also tables and newspapers, giving men as good 
an opportunity to pass unoccupied time as the saloon, also rooms 
and halls for lodges, trades-unions, political clubs, and the like. 
There can, in my mind, be no doubt that such places would 
sooner or later be remunerative, although it might be necessary 
to lose a good deal of money at the start. 

Some of the English cities seem to have provided public halls 
for meetings of citizens, and their experience is worthy of exami- 
nation. 

Some of our trades-unions and other labor organizations have 
done something to meet the want described, and they ought to 
receive more encouragement in efforts of this kind. A few win- 
ters since, I found two rather cheerless rooms in an upper story 
of a large building in Cleveland, as I was searching for an office. 
The rooms contained a few papers, checkerboards, packs of 
cards, etc. I asked a plainly dressed, but intelligent and honest- 
looking man, by whom the rooms were occupied, and was told 
by the Bricklayers' Union. He said that when " the boys " were 
out of work it furnished them with a lounging place and kept 
them out of the saloons. 

The bricklayers of Philadelphia have a large, new hall, and 
when I visited it I found a store on the first floor vacant. It had 
not then been rented. The managers had received an offer of 
high rent for it from a man who wanted to open a saloon, but it 



APPENDIX II. 385 

had been decided that under no circumstances would it be let for 
such a purpose, much as they might want the money. I noticed 
that the book-shelves were empty, and here was an opportunity 
for temperance workers and philanthropists to encourage a good 
beginning by providing literature of a high order to reduce still 
further the attractions of the saloon. 

The Labor Lyceum of Myrtle Street, Brooklyn, furnishes a 
meeting place for workingmen, and rooms for many of their 
organizations. A benevolent physician has been active in aiding 
in its construction. It was desired to prohibit altogether the 
sale of intoxicating liquors in the building, but unfortunately it 
was difficult to pay for it, and reluctantly the right to sell beer 
was given to a man who pays to the Lyceum a certain sum for 
every keg sold. 

Now, what temperance workers ought to do, it seems to me, 
is to take hold of good features of the labor movement and assist 
in their development. Here, as elsewhere, what is wanted is to 
help people to help themselves. It is a mistake to try to force 
things on people. What is wanted is to take hold of institutions 
spontaneously arising among the masses, and to help to give 
them a sound development. 

Churches should do more ; think of saloons open one hundred 
hours a week, and churches open, say, six hours ! The churches, 
if open at all times, would furnish meeting places, and if they 
kept people from evil, I believe God would be pleased. 

Workingmen's employers would often find it profitable to assist 
in this work. I visited the Hocking Valley in 1886. It is a 
mining region in Ohio, and was the scene of long-continued and 
more or less violent strikes a few years ago, as will be generally 
remembered. In New Straitsville I was struck by the utter 
cheerlessness and desolateness of the lives of people condemned 
to live in such a frightful place. I went in the evening to an 
entertainment given by a troupe of very indifferent minstrels. 
The charge was ten cents, and as I came out, a lot of boys eagerly 
asked for my ticket. The look on the faces of the men and boys 
was to me pathetic. They were famishing for some rational, 
health-giving amusement. Their employers had spent $everal 



386 APPENDIX II 

hundred thousand dollars, and done their business a damage, 
some say, of over a million, to gain a victory ' ' in wind," as a 
prominent member of the syndicate said. The syndicate was 
determined to crush the miner's organization, but when I was in 
the place I think there was not even one miner who was a non- 
union man. I thought how much better it would have been for 
the syndicate to expend, say, one hundred thousand dollars, in 
the construction of a library and hall, and to give the men oppor- 
tunities for a more wholesome life. It would have been appre- 
ciated, and would probably have saved all' that was lost in fruit- 
less strife. 

Child-labor is a potent cause of intemperance, and here tem- 
perance reform and the labor movement should proceed unitedly. 
It is an evil which is rapidly growing, especially in the West. 
Children fall into bad ways, and are lost while yet too young to 
be fully responsible. 

Tenement-house reform is another work which is essential to 
temperance reform. It is impossible to expel King Alcohol from 
the slums of cities like New York and Chicago so long as these 
slums exist. Negative work here will never accomplish the end 
desired. The slums are breathing holes of hell, and should be 
swept from the earth, and if Christian people would go earnestly 
to work and stop listening to the devil as he preaches laissez 
faire, let alone, non-interference, they could be swept from the 
earth. 

Bad ventilation of mines and workshops weakens the consti- 
tution and paves the way for beer and whiskey. Let every tem- 
perance advocate support the workingmen in their effort to im- 
prove the condition of mines and workshops. Measures like 
these are not something which temperance people may feel free 
to support or not to support as they see fit. They are a real 
essential part of the temperance movement. 

Playgrounds for children are needed. No American city has 
done its duty in this respect, and we are lagging far behind Euro- 
pean cities. I notice how eagerly any open spot near my house 
is seized by boys and girls. They are hungry for innocent play, 
and much mischief comes from Jack of opportunity. It is mere 



APPENDIX II 387 

overflow of animal spirits which can find no harmless channel 
into which to flow. The experience of Cornell University is in- 
structive. Ex-President White told me that after military drill 
had been introduced, a gymnasium erected, and opportunities 
for physical exercise of an innocent kind had been provided, 
difliculties of discipline almost disappeared. Disorder and law- 
lessness stopped almost spontaneously. I believe many a " city 
tough " might have grown into a useful citizen had municipal 
playgrounds and gymnasiums been provided for him while a 
child. 

Overwork is a cause of intemperance, especially in over-heated 
and poorly ventilated factories, and it has generally been observed 
by those who have made a study of the matter, that a reduction 
in the hours of labor is followed by a diminution of intemper- 
ance, perhaps not at first, but in a near future. This is, I think, 
the very general testimony of experts in this matter, and is the 
result shown by every careful investigation. I will quote a few 
words on this subject from Robert Howard of Massachusetts, 
secretary of the spinners' organization, and a very intelligent and 
competent witness. In speaking of the girls in Fall River mills, 
he says : — 

"It is dreadful to see those girls, stripped almost to the skin, 
wearing only a kind of loose wrapper, and running like a race 
horse from the beginning to the end of the day ; and I can per- 
ceive that it is bringing about both a moral and physical decay 
in them. ... I must say that I have noticed that the hard, 
slavish overwork is driving those girls into the saloons after they 
leave the mills in the evening ; and you might as well deprive 
them of their suppers ; after they leave the mills you will see 
them going into saloons, looking scared and ashamed, and trying 
to go in without any one seeing them — good, respectable girls, 
too ; but they come out so tired, and so thirsty, and so exhausted, 
especially in the summer months, from working along steadily 
from hour to hour, and breathing the noxious effluvia from the 
grease and other ingredients that are used in the mills, and they 
are so exhausted when the time comes to quit, that you will find 
that all their thoughts are concentrated on something to drink to 



388 APPENDIX II 

allay their thirst." Of course, men are still more exposed to 
this temptation, and much more testimony could be given. 

Here, again, we ought to unite positive with negative work, 
and those interested in the temperance movement ought to help 
workingmen to reduce to reasonable limits the length of the 
working day in factories and shops, and then to encourage them 
to make a good use of leisure. The seventh Earl of Shaftesbury 
— whose life, by Hodder, should be read by every philanthropist 
• — was in this, as in so many other respects, a model reformer. 
He assisted the short-time committees very efficiently in securing 
suitable legislation, and when the working day was reduced in 
accordance with their programme, he wrote them a letter, from 
which the following is an extract: " My good friends, . . . 
First, we must give most humble and hearty thanks to Almighty 
God for the unexpected and wonderful success that has attended 
our efforts. . . . But with your success have commenced new 
duties. You are now in possession of those two hours which 
you have so long and so ardently desired ; you must therefore 
turn them to the best account, to that account which was ever 
in the minds of your friends and advocates when they appealed 
to the legislature on behalf of your rights as immortal beings, as 
citizens and Christians. 

"You will remember the principal motive that stimulated your 
own activity and the energetic aid of your supporters in Parlia- 
ment, was the use that might be made of this leisure for the 
moral improvement of the factory people, and especially the 
female workers, who will now enjoy far better opportunities both 
of learning and practising those duties which must be known 
and discharged if we would have a comfortable, decent, and 
happy population. 

"You will experience no difficulty throughout your several 
districts in obtaining counsel or assistance on these subjects. 
The clergy, the various ministers, the medical men — all who 
have been so forward and earnest in your cause — will, I am 
sure, be really delighted to co-operate with your efforts." 

But one other point remains to be mentioned. The use of 
intoxicating beverages has been in a thousand and one ways 



APPENDIX IL 389 

connected with sociability. It has associations with joyous and 
festive occasions. Here, again, we must not be content with 
simple banishment. Those who have gifts as social leaders have 
opportunity to do useful work. They should give their earnest, 
serious thought to the development of new social forms and cus- 
toms, quite as charming and delightful as the old, yet uncon- 
nected with beverages which intoxicate. Always strive to put 
some good influence in the place of the evil habit banished, for 
until this is done the victory is only half won. 

These are a few of the suggestions which occur to me in con- 
nection with those two large subjects, temperance reform and 
the labor movement, and, inadequate as this treatment is, I trust 
that it may stimulate thought and endeavor, and help forward 
the good work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Adams, J. Q., on cotton-mills, 48. 
Adams, Henry C, on State interference 

in industries, 325. 
Alarm, the, 241, 278 ; letter to tramps, 

364-366. 
Allegheny City, socialistic congress in, 

228. 
Amana, communistic settlement in, 15, 

16. 
American communism, early, 7-33. 
Anarchists, object of, 6; a name for 

Internationalists, 232. 
Andrews, S. P., converted to socialism, 

239. 
Arbeiter Union, Die, published, 226. 
Arbitration by labor organizations, 146- 

153. 
Atchison, Kan., co-operation in, 184. 

B. 

Babouvism, revival of, 256, 257. 

Bcecker-Zeitung, Deutch-Amerikanisch, 
the, 279. 

Bakers' Union, formed, 65 ; Journal on 
boycott, 299. 

Baltimore, United Hand-Loom Weav- 
ers' Association, wages of, 49, 50; 
ten-hour system in, 56 ; co-operation 
in, 178; co-operative insurance of 
the railroad company, 193, 194; so- 
cialistic congress in, 228, 229. 

Banks, co-operative, in Massachusetts, 
198, 199. (See Credit and Co-opera- 
tion.) 

Barnard on building associations, 199. 



Baumeler, Joseph, leader of Separatists, 
16. 

Beecher, Rev. Dr. Thos. K., on labor 
organizations, 157, 158. 

Black Hand, the, 260, 261. 

Black list, description of, no, in. 

Blacksmiths' Union formed, 60. 

Blair bill, probable success among the 
working classes, 124. 

Blanchard, J. G., poem on eight hours, 
72, 73- 

Blanqui, works of, introduced to Amer- 
ica, 220. 

" Bootmakers' Case," 54. 

Boston, workmen of, in colonial times, 
37 ; a centre of labor organizations, 
41 ; meeting of laboring classes in, 
50-52. 

Boycott and its parallel wrong, 166; 
mediaeval usage of, 297; laborer's 
view of, 297, 300 ; law against, 301, 
302, 303. 

Brassey, Thos., friend of the laborers, 

323. 

Brentano, Professor, on the kinds of in- 
surance, 142; on laborers' sympa- 
thizers, 310. 

Brewster, Messrs., profit-sharing, 315. 

Bricklayers' and Masons' Union formed, 
63, 64 ; in Philadelphia, 66 ; insur- 
ance among, 144 ; Protective Asso- 
ciation, pledge and preamble of, 341, 
342. 

Briggs Bros., profit-sharing, 314. 

Brighton, Workingmen's Institute of, 
121. 

Brisbane, Albert, advocates Fourierism, 



392 



INDEX. 



20, 21; Dr. Kock's admiration of, 
220. 

Brook Farm, Fourieristic phalanx in, 21. 

Brown, Rev. Dr. T. E., change of view 
about labor organizations, 154; on 
trades-unions, 155, 156, 157. 

Buckle, Thos., influence of, on Anar- 
chists, 245. 

Buffalo, co-operation in, 184. 

Building associations, 196-199. 

Burke, Edmund, influence on Anar- 
chists, 246. 

C. 

Cabet, communism of, 16. 
Camden and Amboy Transportation 
Co., an example from the history of, 

35- 

Canterbury, boycott in, 297. 

Carpenters' Union, 65, 67; life insur- 
ance, 144 ; on arbitration, 148 ; the 
organ of, 279. 

Carter, James G., friend of laboring 
class, 53, 54. 

Caulkers' Club, object of, 37. 

Ceresco, Fourieristic phalanx in, 21. 

Chamberlain, friend of laborers, 323. 

Channing, Wm. E., friend of labor, 53, 
54, 121, 122. 

Chicagoer Arbeiterzeitung, Die, 241. 

Child labor, Seth Luther's investiga- 
tions about, 48, 49. 

Childs, Geo. W., favors laborers' union, 
58, 59 ; encourages co-operation, 190. 

Christian Socialist, the, 280. 

Church, responsibility of, to labor, 330- 

332. 

Cigar Makers, radical ideas of the Pro- 
gressive Union, 5; constitution of, 
342-345 ; strikes among, 150. 

Cincinnati, socialistic congress in, 228. 

Claflin, Wm., favors ten-hour day, 57. 

Columbian Charitable Society of Ship- 
wrights and Caulkers, 39. 

Communism, seeks equality, 6; early 
American, 7-33; revival of, 20; 



Horace Greeley on, 26, 27; club 

founded, 225. 

Conductors' Brotherhood organized, 
64. 

Convict labor, abolishment of, 339. 

Cooper, Peter, service to labor, 308. 

Coopers' co-operation in Minneapolis, 
188. 

Co-operation, peaceful aim of, 6; plea- 
sure in, a feature in community life, 
27 ; in Icaria, 28 ; prospect of, 136, 
137 ; in America, 167-208 ; distribu- 
tive, 167-179; productive, 180-189; 
different forms of, 190-195; credit, 
19^-199; failures and possibilities, 
199-208 ; organs of, 186 ; encour- 
aged by George W. Childs, 190 ; by 
W. A. Wood, 191 ; among Messrs. 
Pillsbury's employees, 191, 192; in- 
surance, 192-195 ; buildings, 196, 
197; no legal provision for, 200, 
201 ; want of sympathy for, 201 ; 
success of, in England and Ger- 
many, 204; of Briggs Bros., 314; 
of Messrs. Brewster, 315 ; National 
Labor Union on, 339. 

Covington, Ky., co-operation in, 186. 

Craftsman, the, organ of printers, 59. 

Credit co-operation, 195-199. 

Crosby, Rev. Dr. Howard, on morals 
of community work, 315. 

Cross, friend of laborers, 323. 

Currency, inflation, labor leaders' mis- 
take respecting, 159. 



Daily Sentinel, the, issue of, 41. 
Dana, Chas. A., advocates Fourierism, 

20. 
Darwin, Chas., influence on Anarchists, 

247, 248. 
De Lavelaye, on luxury, referred to, 

318 ; on Spencer's and Darwin's 

influence on Anarchists, 247. 
Democratic party, affiliation with work- 

ingmen, 43. 



INDEX. 



393 



Distributive co-operation, 167-179 ; Mc- 
Neil on, 171, 172; among Sove- 
reigns of Industry, 174-177 ; among 
Grangers, 177-179. 

Dress Association, co-operative, 168. 

Drexel, Mr., in favor of laborers' 
union, 59. 

Dynamite, Internationalists' resort to, 
255-258. 

E. 

Earle, Wm. H., founder of the Sove- 
reigns of Industry, 175. 

Eccarius, J. G., secretary of the Inter- 
national, 226 ; on international co- 
operation, 227. 

Economy, Harmonists' settlement in, 
14, 15; health in, 29; celibacy in, 

32. 

Education, as a remedy for social ills, 
47 ; labor organizations as a means 
of, 120-140. 

Educational campaign of Anarchists, 
265. 

Eight-hour system, 71, 72; demonstra- 
tion for, in New York, 228. 

Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomo- 
tive, formed, 62. 

Enquirer, the, 242, 278. 

Equality of man, fallacy of, 97, 98. 

Evans, George H., land reforms of, 41 ; 
political activity of, 43. 

Evans, Fred. W., advent of, to America, 
41 ; joins Shakers, 12, 29, 43. 



Fackel, Die, 241, 258. 

Factory labor, in New England, 49. 

Fawcett, Henry, on the effect of labor 

organizations, 119. 
Federation, of Organized Trades, 88, 

89; of Trades and Labor Union, 

platform of, 305-307. 
Federative Union of Metal Workers, 

radical platform of, 5. 



Field, D. D., on the formation of char- 
acter, referred to, 329. 

Firemen, Locomotive, union organized, 
64 ; insurance among, 144. 

Force, Peter, president of typographical 
society, 38. 

Forster, Wm. E., friend of labor, 323. 

Fourier, promulgation of his doctrine 
in America, 20-25 ; Dr. Kock's ad- 
miration of, 220. 

Fraser, Daniel, on the bases of moral- 
ity, 28 ; on little duties, 32. 

Freiheit, Die, 2.^1 ; on religion, 242, 
243 ; on family, 243 ; on revolution, 
258-260. (See Most.) 

Furniture Workers' Union formed, 64 ; 
insurance among, 145 ; journal, 279. 

G. 

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, a mild Anar- 
chist, 248. 

General Trades-Union of the City of 
New York, 43. 

George, Henry, moral effect of his 
writings, 125, 126 ; socialism of, 283, 
284. 

Glass Workers' Union, 66. 

Gould, Jay, Anarchists' comment on, 
257. 263. 

Grangers, history of, 73-75; educa- 
tional interests among, 129, 130; 
co-operation among, 177-179; co- 
operative credit, 195. 

Granite Cutters' Union formed, 65. 

Greeley, Horace, advocates Fourier- 
ism, 20, 21 ; on early American com- 
munism, 26; Dr. Koch's admira- 
tion of, 220. 

Gronlund, Laurence, expounder of 
Carl Marx's doctrine, 214. 

Guilds, ancient, educational features 
of, 121. 

H. 

Haeckel, influence of, on Russian nihil- 
ism, 248. 



394 



INDEX. 



Hall, Rev. Dr. John, on the prejudice 
against trades-unions, 155, 156. 

Hammer, Der, 279. 

Harbinger, The, official organ of Fou- 
rierism, 21. 

Harmonists, history of their settlement, 

14, 15- 

Harrison, Frederic, on the red flag of 
the Internationalists, 215; on labor- 
ers' friend, 309. 

Hat Finishers' Union organized, 59, 64. 

Haverhill, local assemblies of K. of L., 
82. 

Hayes, Ex-President, Noyes' relation- 
ship to, 17. 

Henrici Jacob, leader of Economites,29. 

Hewitt, A. S., Anarchists' attack on, 256. 

Hocking Valley strike, 152. 

Hodel, treason of, 262. 

Horseshoers, national union of, 64. 

Hosmer, Professor, on the Boston work- 
ingmen in colonial times, 37. 

Howard, Robert, on the laborers' temp- 
tation to intemperance, 133. 

Howells on Shakers, 14, 31. 

Hudson, Mr., on Pittsburgh riot, 35. 

Hughes, Thomas, on modern social 
confusion, 30; on trades-unionism 
in England, 162; interest in co- 
operation, 204; friend of laboring 
class, 323. 

Husbandry, patrons of. (See Gran- 
gers^ 

Huxley, influence of, on Anarchists, 
247, 248. 

Hyndman, H. M., expounds Carl 
Marx's doctrines, 214 ; on Interna- 
tionalists, 232. 

I. 

Icaria, communistic society of, 16, 17 ; 
labor, how regarded, 28. 

Indian common land, 8, 9. 

Insurance promoted by labor organi- 
zations, 141-145 ; co-operative, 192- 
195- 



Intemperance (See Temperance). 

International Workmen's Association, 
251-253. (See Internationalists.) 

International Working People's Asso- 
ciation, 231-251. (See Internation- 
alists.) 

International Furniture Workers' 
Union, radical platform of, 5. 

Internationalists, color of, 209, 214, 215 ; 
character of, 212; disruption from 
S. L. P., 229; manifesto, 241; or- 
gans of, 241 ; sources of their plat- 
form, 245-249 ; propaganda of deed 
and educational campaign, 254- 
268 .strength of, 285. 

Irish World and Industrial Liberator, 
279. 

Iron and Steel Workers' Union organ- 
ized, 60, 64, 65 ; constitution of the 
Amalgamated Association of, 345- 
358. 

J. 

James, Prof. E. J., on co-operation, 
208 ; on municipal gas supply, re- 
ferred to, 325. 

Jamestown colony, industrial constitu- 
tion and communism in, 7. 

Jefferson, Thos., lauded by Simpson, 45. 

John Swinton's Paper, on peace, 139; 
on boycott, 300. 

Journeymen Bakers' National Union, 
radical principle of, 5. 

K. 

Kaufmann, Rev., on strikes, 160, 161 ; 
on the failure of Briggs Bros.' profit- 
sharing, 314. 

Kingsley, Chas., on the elevation of 
workingmen, 95, 96. 

Knight, Professor, account of his visit 
to Zoar, 33. 

Knights of Labor, rise and constitu- 
tion of, 75-82; relations to female 
laborers, 82 ; to negro labor, 83 ; on 
arbitration, 148, 155; preamble of, 






INDEX. 



395 



85-88 ; gain of, 90 ; libraries of, 128 ; 
insurance, 145 ; strikes among, 152 ; 
productive co-operation, 185-187 ; 
socialistic tendency, 282, 283. 
Koch, Dr. E. I., herald of socialism in 
America, 220. 



Labor not a commodity, 98-110; pe- 
culiarities of, and the consequences 
therefrom, 100-110; combination 
laws, 109; causes of movement 
since the Civil War, 61, 62; hours 
(see Eight and Ten Hours) ; hard- 
ship of, tempts to intemperance, 

133- 

Labor organizations, scope of, in 
America, 1-6; growth and present 
condition, 34-91 ; periods in the 
history of, 34-91 ; absence of, in 
colonial times, 34-38; primitive 
form of, 38 ; organs of, 67, 91 ; ex- 
tinct forms of, 67-70; strength of, 
138 ; insurance among, 141-145 ; 
arbitration, 146-153; dark side of, 
153-166; prejudice against, 153- 
159 ; expenses of, 163 ; different ef- 
fects of, 141-166; economic value 
of, 92-119; educa.tional value, 120- 
140; temperance in, 130; social 
culture, 135 ; ethical significance, 
137; declaration by the represen- 
tatives of, 370-373. 

Labor Enquirer \ The, 278. 

Land, common property in, among 
Indians, 8, 9; reform scheme by 
George Evans, 41. 

Lassalle, F., influence of, in America, 
225. 

Lebanon, Mount, Shaker community 
in, 10, 12. (See Shakers.) 

Ledyard, J. R., on the advantages of 
co-operation, 187, 188. 

Lee, Ann, founds Shakerism, 9; eco- 
nomic and religious precepts of, 10. 

Leeds, Rev. Dr. George, on the re- 



sponsibility of Church in labor 
problem, 330. 

Letter to tramps, 364-366. 

Lenz, Chas., on Luxury, 318. 

Liberty, the, 280 ; on London riot, 264. 

Lincoln, Abraham, on dangers of class 
laws, 147. 

Loco-Foco Party begun, 42. 

Longley, Alcander, on diligence in 
community life, 30, 31. 

Lucifer, the, 241. 

Luther, Seth, on the condition of pro- 
ducing classes, 47-50. 

Luxurv, effect of, on laboring classes, 
318. 

Lynching advocated by Anarchists, 258. 

M. 

Mann, Horace, interest in labor cause, 
53, 54, 121. 

Marriage, prudence in, taught by trades- 
unions, 117, 118; Internationalists' 
attack on, 242, 243, 244. 

Marx, Carl, teacher of socialists, 214 ; 
influence on Weydemeyer, 221 ; on 
the regeneration of English laborers, 
316. 

Maryland Constitution on the right of 
resistance, 250. 

Mason, Lowell, on Warren's invention, 
239. 

Masons' and Bricklayers' Union, 63, 64. 

Maurice, F. D., on the rightfulness of 
war, 250; on thirst for blood, 328. 

McNeill, Geo. E., history of co-opera- 
tion, 171, 172. 

Meacham, Joseph, introduces commu- 
nism among Shakers, 10. 

Meyer, assists Weydemeyer in propa- 
gating socialism, 221. 

Mill, J. S., on the desirability of social 
experiments, 25 ; on the elevation 
of laboring classes, jj ; on strikes, 
151 ; on co-operation, 169 ; on the 
economic value of labor organiza- 
tions, 119 ; indebtedness to Warren, 



396 



INDEX. 



238 ; on the consumption of capital, 

3i7v 
Milton's conception of law, 251. 
Miners' Journal, 280. 
Minneapolis, coopers' co-operation in, 

188. 
Moore, Ely, address in labor interest, 

43.44- 

Morley, on the working of social forces, 
2. 

Morley, Samuel, friend of laboring 
people, 323. 

Most, John, on the color for S. L. P., 
209; arrival in America, 229; ap- 
peal for forming the Black Hand, 
260; on Stellmacher's death, 262; 
on Reinsdorf's execution, 263 ; crim- 
inal utterances of, 291. 

N. 

Nashua, N.H., co-operation in, 184. 

National Labor Union, rise of, 69, 70 ; 
platform of principles, 333-341. 

Neale, E. V., interest in co-operation, 
204. 

Negro labor in K. of L., 83. 

Newark, socialistic congress in, 228. 

New England Artizan, issue of, 51. 

Newspapers, labor, 67, 91 ; use of, 115. 

Newton, Dr. Heber, on co-operation, 
171. 

New York, society of shipwrights or- 
ganized, 38 ; typographical society 
formed, 38 ; a centre of labor organ- 
izations^ ; GeneralTrades-Unions, 
43 ; socialistic congress in, 228. 

New Yorker Volkzeitung, the, circula- 
tion of, 278. 

Nihilism, rise of, 247, 248. 

Nobling, treason of, 262. 

North American phalanx, Fourieristic, 
21, 22. 

Noyes, John H., founds Oneida com- 
munity, 17 ; death of, 19 ; on com- 
munistic societies in America, 20: 
Mrs., studies Greek, 32, 



O. 

Oath required by employees, 111, 112. 
Ohio, imposition on laborers in mining 

districts, 105. 
Oneida, Perfectionists' community in 

17. 

Orton, Professor, on imposition on 
laborers, 105. 

Owen, Robert, visits America, 20; suc- 
cess of, 322. 



Patrons of Husbandry. (See Grangers.) 

Peace principle among labor organi- 
zations, 139. 

Pennsylvania R. R. Co., insurance sys- 
tem in, 194. 

Perfectionists' community, history of, 
17-20; character and strength of, 
32. 

Pestalozzi, respected by laborers, 122. 

Philadelphia, co-operative society in 
167, 179; building associations in, 
198, 199; socialistic congress in, 
228. 

Physiocrats, attempt to free labor from 
legal restrictions, 96. 

Pilgrim Fathers, communistic experi- 
ment of, 8. 

Pillsbury, Messrs., co-operation en- 
couraged by, 191, 192. 

Pittsburgh, socialistic congress in, 228. 

Plasterers' Union, 65. 

Police, need of reform in, 327, 328. 

Potter, Bishop Henry C, on luxury, 
318 ; on legal restraints, 329. 

Potters' strike in Trenton, 85. 

Powderly, Mr., against eight-hour sys- 
tem, 71; stigmatizes intemperance, 
132 ; salary of, 163. 

Production, co-operative, 180-189; im- 
petus given by Sylvis, 182; in 
Rochester, 183 ; in Buffalo, 184 ; in 
Nashua, 184; Atchinson, 184; 
among Knights of Labor, 185; 
periodicals relating to, 186; in 



INDEX. 



397 



Covington, 186; Ledyard on, 187; 

of coopers, 188, 189. 
Progress, the, 279. 
Proudhon, anarchist teacher, 237, 245. 

Q. 

Quakers assist Separatists, 15. 
Quincy, Josiah, attempts to found co- 
operative bank, 196. 

R. 

Railway, fluctuations in stocks through 

labor organizations, 163 ; insurance 

in companies, 193, 194. 
Rankin, J. S., advocates co-operation, 

188. 
Rantoul, Robert, interest in labor's 

cause, 53, 54, 121. 
Rapp, George, leader of Harmonists, 

15. 

Reclus, influence on Anarchists, 245. 

Reinsdorf, August, execution of, 263, 
, 264. 

Remedies for labor's wrongs, 295-332. 

Robertson, Rev. F. W., address before 
workingmen, referred to. 121. 

Rochdale Co-operative Society, Wash- 
ington, 167. 

Rochester, co-operation in, 183. 

Rogers, Professor Thorold, on the edu- 
cational effect of labor organizations, 
140 ; change of view about trades- 
unions, 153, 154; on undue influ- 
ence of organized upon unorgan- 
ized laborer, 164, 165. 



1 Schultze-Delitzsch, founder of German 

credit banks, 204. 
Seamen's Union formed, 65. 
Semler, Henry, estimate of number of 

organized laborers, 89. 
Separatists, history of, 15. 
Shakers, call themselves a social watch- 



tower, 2; history of, 9-14; health 

among, 28; intelligence of, 29,30; 

diligence, 31 ; temperance, 32. 
Shaw, Dr. Albert, on Icaria, 16; on 

co-operative coopers, 188, 189. 
Shipwrights' Union formed, 38, 39. 
Sigel, Gen. Franz, a Turner, 223. 
Simpson, Stephen, on labor problem, 

44, 47- 
Sismondi, disgust at political economy, 

218. 
Smalley, E. W., on Shaker diligence, 

3i. 
Smith, Adam, on laborer's appearance 
in public, 34, 35 ; freedom of labor, 

0,97. 

Smith, Capt. John, protests against 
idlers, 7. 

Socialism, advocates juster distribution 
of goods, 6 ; beginnings of modern, 
in America, 209-230 ; Weitling prop- 
agates, 219; impetus from France, 
227 ; congress, 228 ; strength of, 277- 
294 ; organs of, 277-280. 

Socialistic Labor Party, color of, 209 ; 
character of, 210; materialism of, 
212 ; adoption of name, 228 ; split 
from Internationalists, 229; mani- 
festo, 269, 270 ; opposed to anarch- 
ism, 270, 288 ; doctrines of, 272, 273 ; 
organs of, 276; sections of, 281; 
platform of, 366-370. 

Socialist, The, on boycott, 299. 

Sovereigns of Industry, distributive co- 
operation among, 174-177 ; produc- 
tive co-operation, 185. 

Sozial Demokrat, 279. 

Sozialist, Der, 2.76, 278. 

Somerset, Mass., co-operation in, 184. 

Spencer, Herbert, influence on Anar- 
chists, 245, 247 ; ethical mistake 
referred to, 311. 

Spies, Augustus, on the black flag of 
Anarchists, 240. 

St. Crispin, Knights of, history of, 67, 
68. 



39S 



INDEX. 



Starkweather, on socialistic press, 277. 

Stellmacher, treason of, 262. 

Stevens, U. S.. originates Knights of 

Labor, 75. 
Strasser, A., on strikes of cigar-makers, 

15°. r 5 2 - 

Strikes, potters', in Trenton, 85 ; arbi- 
tration in, 146-153; among cigar- 
makers, 150, 152 ; Professorvon Wal- 
tershausen on American, 150; of 
Hocking Valley, 152 ; Trant on, 160 ; 
Rev. Kaufmann on, 160, 161 ; of Iron 
and Steel Workers' Association, 355. 

Sylvis, Wm. H., labor leader, 60 ; starts 
co-operative production, 182, 183. 



Tageblatt, the, 276. 

Tailors' Union formed, 65. 

Temperance in community life, 32; 
labor organizations on, 130-135; 
counter-influences on, 132, 133 ; re- 
form, relation of, to labor movement, 

375. 
Ten-hour question, 55-77. 
To-day, the, 280. 
Typographical Society, organized in 

New York, 38, 39 ; insurance in, 144. 
Tocsin, the, 278. 
Trades-unions, absence of, in colonial 

times, 36 ; conservative and radical 

parties among, 5. 
Trades Union, the, on intemperance, 

134, 135- 

Tramps, letter to, 364-366. 

Trant, Mr., on strikes, 160. 

Travellick, Dick, on intemperance, 132. 

Trimble, John, on Grangers' co-opera- 
tion, 177, 178. 

Truth, the, 241, 242, 278 ; on religion, 
242 ; on arming of people, 290 ; on 
boycott, 303. 

Tucker, Benj. R., representative of 
Anarchists, 237. 

Turner, Mr., on potters' strike in Tren- 
ton, 85 ; salary of, 163. 1 



Turnvereine constituted, 221, 222; in- 
dictment of members, 223. 

Turnzeitung, publication of, 222. 

Typographical Union, International, 
formed, 57, 58 ; en arbitration, 148. 



Van Buren, Pres., introduces ten-hour 

system, 56. 
Vanderbilt, Wm. H., Anarchists' view 

of his life, 257, 263; poem on his 

wealth, 267, 268. 
Voice of the People, the, 276, 278. 
Volkzeitung, New York, 276, 278. 
Von/ Waltershausen, Professor, on 

strikes in America, 150 ; on boycott 

law, 301. 
Vorbote, Der, 241, 278; on religion, 

243; on family, 243, ^44; on the 

red flag of the Internationalists, 

215 ; Anarchists' organ, 226 ; on the 

arming of people, 290. 

W. 

Warren, Josiah, anarchic leader, 237- 
240, 245 ; J. S. Mill's debt to, 238. 

Washington, D.C., Co-operative Soci- 
ety, 167. 

Watervliet, Shaker settlement in, 9. 

Weavers' Trades Association in Balti- 
more, wages in, 49, 50. 

Weed, Thurlow, a member of Typo- 
graphical Society, 38 ; on its incor- 
poration, 39; on miscarriage of 
justice, 249. 

Weitling, Wilhelm, introduces social- 
ism to America, 219, 220, 221. 

Western Union Telegraph Co., vio- 
lence done to, 35. 

Weydemeyer disseminates socialism in 
America, 221. 

Whitcomb, Samuel, on the unjust eco- 
nomic distribution, 47. 

White, Andrew D., on a legal anomaly, 
291. 



INDEX. 



399 



Whittles, Samuel, chairman of co- 
operative board, Fall River, '205. 

Williams, Ezekiel, nominated for gov- 
ernorship, 42. 

Wilson on socialistic press, 277. 

Wisconsin, Fourieristic phalanx in, 21, 
22. 

Women, relations to K. of L., 82, 83 ; 
labor union, 339, 341. 

Wood, Walter A., encourages co-oper- 
ation, 191. 

Woodrow, Fred., on black-listing, no, 
in. 

Workman, the, a labor organ of Cleve- 
land. 115. 



Workman's Advocate, the, 279. 

Workingmen, Institute for, in Brighton, 
121 ; party, 42. (Compare Labor.) 

Working day, normal, 55-57. 

Wyatt, Hon. D., on the educational in- 
fluence of the Granges, 129. 

Y. 

Young America, the, issue of, 41. 



Zoar, Separatists' settlement in, 15; 
failure of, 25, 31 ; Professor Knight's 
visit to, 33. 



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